476 GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON 



conjunction with a certain organized system of matter, 

 therefore those powers necessarily exist in, and depend 

 upon such a system. But this is clearly the same assump- 

 tion as that made by Spinoza; namely, that no sentient 

 beings exist, but such as we perceive ; and would, if ne- 

 cessarily true, make the Deity material. 



They who have been so unfortunate as to renounce re- 

 velation, generally consider utter annihilation to take place 

 at the termination of material life. They hold, that the 

 combination of actions to an end, is more complete in pro- 

 portion to the complexity of the material organization of 

 the agent. In order therefore to maintain the intellectual 

 superiority of man over other animals, they are obliged to 

 assume his positive superiority in mechanism ; and as this 

 assumption is demonstrably false with respect to the ma- 

 jority of his bodily powers, they are obliged to centre the 

 light of reason which characterizes him, in some favourite 

 part of his structure. Helvetius accordingly placed it in 

 the human hand, and came to the monstrous conclusion, 

 that the flexibility of the human fingers produces that in- 

 telligence, which is to direct them to useful purposes. 

 Others, composing what may be styled the school of Bi- 

 chat, vest their reason in the substance of their brain, by 

 the organization of which they hold perception as a latent 

 property of matter to be called into activity. The nerves 

 with them produce the mental faculties, in the same manner 

 that the various secretions of an animal are generated by 

 the secretory organs. Here is clearly an assumption of 

 what can never be proved ; for while they assert that the 

 brain and nerves constitute the mind, all we really know 

 of the subject is, that during life the exercise of the senti- 

 ent principle is connected with medullary matter. But 



