SOUL. 



which that individual confcioufnefs inheres ; but the con- 

 fcioufnefs can only be fuperadded by the addition of fome- 

 thing, which, in all the particles, mult Hill itfelf be but one 

 individual bein^. The foul, therefore, whofe power of 

 thinking is undeniably one individual confcioufnefs, cannot 

 polTibly be a material fubftance. See on the fubjeft of this 

 article, Brucker's Hiftory of Philofophy, by Enfield. 

 Prieftley's Difquifitions relating to Matter and Spirit, 8vo. 

 1777. Correfpondence between Dr. Price and Dr. Priell- 

 ley, 8vo, 1778. Clarke's Demonllration of the Being and 

 Attrib\ite3 of God. Ar.fwer to Dodwell. Controverfies 

 with Collins ; and Letters between him and Leibnitz. 

 Butler's Analogy, chap. i. Baxter's Matho, vol. i. En- 

 quiry into the Nature of the human Soul, &c. vol. i. 



The notions of the ancients were very various with regard 

 to the feat of the foul, and the mode of its aftion on the 

 body. Some have maintained, that it is equally diffufed 

 through every part of it ; and others fay, that whilft it in- 

 fluences and afts upon every part of the body, it has its prin- 

 cipal refidence in fome particular part. Since it has been 

 difcovered, by the improvements in anatomy, that the nerves 

 are the inftruments of perception, and of the fenfations ac- 

 companying it, and that the nerves ultimately terminate in 

 the brain, it has been the general opinion of philofophers that 

 the brain is the feat of the loul ; and that it perceives the 

 images that are brought there, and external things, only by 

 means of them. Des Cartes, obferving that the Pineal 

 Gland (wiiich fee) is the only part of the brain that is 

 fingle, all the other parts being double, and thinking that 

 the foul mull have one feat, was thus determined to make 

 that gland the foul's habitation ; to which, by means of the 

 animal fpirits, intelligence is brought of all objefts that affeft 

 the fenfes. See Cartes and Cartesianism. 



Others have not thought proper to confine the habitation 

 of the foul to the pineal gland, but to the brain in general, 

 or to fome part of it, which they call the " fenforium." 

 Even the great Newton favoured this opinion, though he 

 propofes it only as a query, with that modeily which diftiii- 

 guifhed him no lefs than his great genius. 



" Is not," fays he, " the fenforium of animals the place 

 where the fenticnt fubftance is prefcnt, and to which the 

 fenfible fpecies of things are brought through the nerves and 

 brain, that there they rhay be perceived by the mmd prefent 

 in that place ? And is there not an incorporeal, living, in- 

 telligent, and omniprefent Being, who, in infinite fpace, as 

 if it were in his fenforium, intimately perceives things 

 themfelve>, and comprehends them perfectly, as being pre- 

 fent to them ; of which things, that principle in us which 

 perceives and thinks, difcerns only in its little fenforium, the 

 images brought to it through the organs of the fenfes ?" 

 His great friend Dr. Clarke adopted the fame fentiments witli 

 more confidence. In his papers to Leibnitz, we find the 

 following pallage-i. " Without being prefent to the images 

 of the things perceived, the foul could not polfibly perceive 

 them. A living iubltance can only there perceive when it 

 is prefent, citlier to the things then\felves, (as the omnipre- 

 fent God if to the whole univerfe,) or to the images of tilings, 

 (as the foul of man i.s in its proper fenfory). Notliing can 

 any more aft, or be adtcd upon, where it is not prclent, than 

 it can be where it is not. We arc furc the foul cannot per- 

 ceive what it is not prefent to, bccaufe nothing can aft, or 

 be afted upon, where it is not." See Si.NsoitiUM. 



Mr. I^ocke exprefles himfelf in fuch a manner, that, for 

 the moll part, one would imagine, that he thought the ideas, 

 or ijnagcn, of things, which he believed to be the immediate 

 '■.hjefts of perception, arc imprcflions upon the mfrid itfelf; 



yet in fome paffages he rather places them in the brain, and 

 makes them to be perceived by the mind there prefent. From 

 fuch padages, cited by Dr. Reid (ubi infra), it may be in- 

 ferred, that he thought there are images of external ob- 

 jefts conveyed to the brain. But whether he thought, with 

 Des Cartes and Newton, that the images in the brain are 

 perceived by the mind there prefent, or that they are im- 

 printed on the mind itfelf, is not obvious. This hypothefis 

 is founded on three allumptions ; and if any one of them 

 fail, it mull fall to the ground. 1. That the foul has its 

 feat, or, as Mr. Locke calls it, its prefence-room, in the 

 brain : 2. That images are formed in the brain of all the ob- 

 jefts of fenfe: 3. That the mind or foul perceives thofe 

 images in the brain ; and that it perceives not external ob- 

 jefts immediately, but only perceives them by means of 

 thofe images. The firit aflumption is not fufficiently efta- 

 blifhed to warrant our founding other principles upon it. Of 

 the fecond there is no proof or probability, with regard to any 

 of the objetts of fenfe. The brain has been diflefted times 

 innumerable, by the nicelt anatomifts ; every part of it has 

 been examined by the naked eye, and with the help of mi- 

 crofcopes ; but 110 vellige of any external objeft was ever 

 found. The brain feems to be the moft improper fubftancf 

 that can be imagined for receiving or retaining images, being 

 a foft, moilt, medullary fubltance. The third alFumption 

 is as improbable, as that there are images of external objefts 

 in the brain to be perceived. If our powers of perception, 

 fays Dr. Reid, be not altogether fallaciou.^, the objefts we 

 perceive are not in our brain, but without us. Reid's EITay 

 on the Intelleftual Powers of Man, EfT. ii. ch. 4. See 

 Perception. 



Borri, a Milanefe phyfician, in a letter to Bartholine, " De 

 Ortu Cerebri, et Ufu Medico," allerts, that in the brain is 

 found a very fubtle fragrant juice, which is the principal feat 

 or refidence of the rcafonable foul ; and adds, that the fub- 

 tlety and finenefs of the foul depends on the temperature of 

 this liquor rather than on the flrufture of the brain, to which 

 it is ufually afcribed. This liquor, we conceive, mufl be 

 the fame with what is ufually called the ner\<ous juict, or ani- 

 mal fpiiils : the conltitution of which is, doubtlefs, of great 

 importance, with regard to the faculties of the foul. 



Mr. Locke diilinguifhes two principal faculties or powers 

 of the rational or human foul, viz. perception and 'willing. 

 See Power. 



To thefe, other philofophers add others ; as fenfatian^ 

 liberty, memory, imagination, and /laiil. 



The myltic divines diltinguifh two principal parts of tho 

 foul : the fuberior part, which comprehends the undcrftand- 

 ing and the will, and the inferior part, which comprehends 

 imagination and fcnfation. 



As to the ioul of brutes, the Cartefians, and fome others, 

 deny its exiltence in the common fenfe of the word foul ; 

 that is, they ilrip it of all the properties or faculties of the 

 human foul : and the Peripatetics, on the contrary, inveil it 

 with the grcatell part, if not all of them. 



In man, a particular agitation of the fibres of the brain 

 is accompanied with a lenfation of lieat ; and a certain flux 

 of animal fpirits towards the heart and vifccra is followed by 

 love or hatred. 



Nowtlie Peripatetics maintain, that brutes feel the fame 

 heat, and the fame paflioiis, on the fame occaljons ; thst 

 they have the fame averlion for what incommodes them ; and, 

 in the general, are capable of all the palRons, and all ths 

 fenfations we feel. 



The Carteliana deny ihry have any peiceptioiu ornoticca 



at nil, that they feel any pain or,pleafuro, or love or hate «ny 



3 C 1 thing. 



