324 



ON MATERIALISM 



of matter itself: but it is probable that there is not a single espouser of this 

 opinion in the present day. If, then, extension belong equally to matter and 

 to space, it cannot be contemplated as the peculiar and exclusive property of 

 the former: and if we allow it to immaterial space, there is no reason why 

 we should not allow it to immaterial spirit. If extension appertain not to 

 the mind, or thinking principle, the latter can have no place of existence, it 

 can exist nowhere, — for where, or place, is an idea that cannot be separated 

 from the idea of extension : and hence the metaphysical immaterialists of 

 modern times freely admit that the mind has no place of existence, that it 

 does exist nowhere ; while at the same time they are compelled to allow 

 that the immaterial Creator or universal spirit exists every where, substan- 

 tially as well as virtually. 



Let me not, however, be misunderstood upon this abstruse and difficult sub- 

 ject. That the mind has a distinct nature, and is a distinct reality from the 

 body ; that it is gifted with immortality, endowed with reasoning faculties, 

 and capacified for a state of separate existtfnce after the death of the corpo- 

 real frame to which it is attached, are, in my opinion, propositions most 

 clearly deducible from Revelation, and, in one or two points, adumbrated by 

 a few shadowy glimpses of nature. And that it may be a substance strictly 

 immaterial and essentially different from matter, is both possible and pro- 

 bable ; and will hereafter, perhaps, when faith is turned into vision, and con- 

 jecture into fact, be found to be the true and genuine doctrine upon the subject ; 

 but till this glorious era arrives, or till, antecedently to it, it be proved, which 

 it does not hitherto seem to have been, that matter, itself of divine origin, 

 gifted even at present, under certain modifications, with instinct and sensa- 

 tion, and destined to become immortal hereafter, is physically incapable, un- 

 der some still more refined and exalted and spiritualized modification, of ex- 

 hibiting the attributes of the soul: of being, ,untdj|^ such a constitution, en- 

 dowed with immortality from the first, and capacified for existing separately 

 from the external and grosser forms of the body, — and that it is beyond the 

 power of its own Creator to render it intelligg^it, or to give it even brutal per- 

 ception, — the argument must be loose and inconclusive ; it may plunge us, as it 

 has plunged thousands before us, into errors, but can never conduct us to demon- 

 stration : it may lead us, on the one hand, to the proud Brahminical, or Pla- 

 tonic belief, that the essence of the soul is the very essence of the Deity, 

 hereby rendered capable of division, and consequently a part of the Deity 

 himself; or, on the other, to the gloomy regions of modern materialism, and 

 to the cheerless doctrine that it dies and dissolves in one common grave with 



There seems a strange propensity among mankind, and it may be traced 

 from a very early period of the world, to look upon matter with contempt. 

 The source of this has never, that I know of, been pointed out ; but it will, 

 probably, be found to have originated in the old philosophical doctrine we had 

 formerly occasion to advert to, that " nothing can spring from or be decom- 

 posed into nothing ;"t and, consequently, that matter must have had a neces- 

 sary and independent existence from all eternity; and have been an immuta- 

 ble principle of evil running coeval with the immutable principle of good ; 

 who, in working upon it, had to contend with all its essential defects, and has 

 made the best of it in his power. But the moment we admit that matter is a 

 creature of the Deity himself; that he has produced it, in his essential bene- 

 volence, out of nothing, as an express mpdium of life and happine«s ; that, in 

 its origin, he pronounced it, under every modification, to be very good ; that 

 the human body, though composed of it, .was at that time perfect and incor- 

 ruptible, and will hereafter recover the same attributes of perfection and in- 

 corruptibility when it shall again rise up fresh from the grave, — contempt and 

 despisal must give way to reverence and gratitude. Nor less so when, with 



* See Locke, Hum. Uuderst. book iv. ch. iii. $ 6, as also' the author's Study of Med. vol. iv. p. 37, 2d 

 edit. 1825. ^ *• 



t In the words of Democritus, Mrj^h rov ixfi Svtos yivtcQai, nj]6e eh rb (iri uv <pdetpev63t. Dion. Laert 

 Ub. ix. p. 44. 



