ON ANCIENT AND MODERN SKEPTICS. 



373^ 



cute distinct sets of purposes or functions; for functions and purposes car-* 

 ried into execution are here synonymous. " Life is the assemblage of all 

 the functions (or purposes), and the general result of their exercise."* 



Life, therefore, upon this hypothesis, instead of being a twofold or three- 

 fold reality, running in a combined stream, or in parallel lines, has no reality- 

 whatever. It has no esse or independent existence. It is a mere assemblage 

 of PURPOSES, and accidental or temporary properties ; a series of phenomena,! 

 as Mr. Lawrence has himself correctly expressed it ; — a name without a thing. 

 " We know not," says he, " the nature of the link that unites these pheno- 

 mena, though we are sensible that a connexion must exist ; and this convic- 

 tion is sufficient to induce us to give it a name, which the vulgar regard as the 

 sign of a particular principle ; though in fact that name can only indicate 

 the assemblage of the phenomena which have occasioned its formation."^ 



The human frame is, hence, a barrel-organ, possessing a systematic 

 arrangement of parts, played upon by peculiar powers, and executing parti- 

 cular pieces or purposes ; and life is the music produced by the general 

 assemblage or result of the harmonious action. So long as either the vital or 

 mechanical instrument is duly wound up by a regular supply of food, or of 

 the wince, so long the music will continue : but both are worn out by their 

 own action ; and when the machine will no longer work, the life has the 

 same close as the music ; and in the language of Cornelius Gallus as quoted 

 and appropriated by Leo. X., 



redit in nihilum, quod fuit ante nihil. 



There is, however, nothing new either in this hypothesis or in the present 

 explanation of it. It was first started in the days of Aristotle by Aristoxe- 

 nus, a pupil of his, who was admirably skilled in music, and by profession a 

 physician. It was propounded to the world under the name of the system of 

 HARMONY, either from the author's fondness for music, or from his comparing 

 the human frame to a musical instrument, and his regarding life as the result 

 of all its parts acting in accordance, and producing a general and harmonious 

 effect.^ 



We have already had occasion to notice this hypothesis in a former lecture, 

 and the triumphant objections with which it was met by the Stoics as well as 

 by the Epicureans ;|| as also that it has at times been revived since, and espe- 

 cialiyby M. Lusac, who extended it to even a wider range : while the same 

 objections remain unanswered to the present hour, and seem to be altogether 

 unanswerable. 



There is, moreover, the same looseness in the term phenomena, employed 

 by Mr. Lawrence and the French writers just adverted to, as we have re- 

 marked in many of the opposers of Mr. Locke, who seem to be afraid of 

 fettering themselves with definite terms or definite ideas. This looseness may 

 be convenient in many cases, but it always betrays weakness or imprecision. 

 In the mouth of the Platonists and Peripatetics of ancient Greece, we dis- 

 tinctly know that the term phenomena denoted the archetypes of the one, or 

 the phantasms of the other. We understand it with equal clearness as made 

 use of, though in very different senses, by Leibnitz in reference to his system 

 of pre-established harmony, and by Professor Robson, in reference to that 

 of Boscovich. But when M. Magendie, or Mr. Lawrence, tells us that " human 

 intelligence," which is the phrase of the former, in the passage just quoted, 

 or " life," which is that of the latter, is a composition or assemblage of phe- 

 nomena, — a " result of the action of an organ," — we have no distinct notion 

 whatever put before us. The '•' purposes," or " properties," or " functions," 

 or whatever it is they intend under the name of phenoiviena, certainly do not 

 seem to be strictly material in themselves, though we are told they are, in 

 some way or other, the product of a material organ : but whether they be the 



* Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, &c. 8vo. p. 120, 1816. t tbid. p. 122. 



t IWd. ^ Study of Med. ut supra. || Series i. Lect. ix. on the Principle of Life. 



