ON MATERIALISM 



ence either of different essences or of different natures — of matter and s' 

 something which is not matter ; or of common matter and matter possessed 

 of properties that it does not discover in its common form. Yet all these, 

 so far from being adverse to each other, subsist in the strictest union, and 

 evince the completest harmony of action. And hence the soul, or intelli- 

 gent principle^ though combined with matter, thougb directly operating 

 from a material organ, maybe a something distinct from matter, and more 

 than matter, even in its most active, ethereal, and spiritualized forms : 

 though, whatever be its actual essence, it undoubtedly makes the nearest 

 approach to it under such a modification. 



In reality, under some such kind of ethereal or shadowy make, mider 

 some such refined or spiritualized and evanescent texture, it seems in 

 almost all ages and nations to have been handed down by universal tradi- 

 tion, and contemplated by the great mass of the people, whatever may 

 have been the opinion of the philosophers, as soon as it has become sepa- 

 rated from the body. And the opinion derives some strength from the 

 manner in which it is stated to have been first formed in the Mosaic 

 records, which intimate it to be a kind of divine breath, vapour, or aura, 

 or to ha^fe proceeded from such a substance ; for " God," we are told, 



breathed into man's nostrils the biieath of life, (cD^^n HDiyj) and he 

 became a living souL'"^ 



Opposed as the two hypotheses of materialism and of immaterialism are 

 to each other, in the sense in which they are commonly understood, it is 

 curious to observe how directly and equally they tend to one common 

 sresult, with respect to a point upon which they are conceived to differ 

 diametrically ; I mean an assimilation of the human soul to that of brutes. 



The materialist, who traces the origin of sensation and thought from a 

 mere modification of common matter, refers the perception and reflection 

 of brutes to the very principle which produces them in man ; and believing 

 that this modification is equally, in both instances, destroyed by deaths- 

 maintains that as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; so that a man hath 

 no pre-eminence above a beast ;"t whence his hope of future existence^' 

 apparently like that of Solomon, who was without the light of the Christian' 

 Scriptures, depends exclusively upon a resurrection of the body. 



The immaterialist, on the contrary, who conceives that mere matter i» 

 incapable, under any modification, of producing sensation and thought, is 

 under the necessity of supplying to every rank of being possessing these 

 powers, the existence of another and of a very different substance com- 

 bined with it ; a substance not subject to the changes and infirmities of 

 matter, and altogether impalpable and incorruptible. For if sensation 

 and ideas can only result from such a substance in man, they can only 

 result from such a substance in brutes ; and hence the level between the 

 two is equally maintained by both parties ; the common materialist lower- 

 ing the man to the brute, and the immaterialist exalting the brute to the 

 man. The immateriahst, however, on the approach of dissolution, finds 

 ©ne difficulty pecuhar to himself, for he kuows not, at that period, how to 

 dispose of the brutal soul : he cannot destroy an incorruptible substance, 

 and yet he cannot bring himself to a belief that it is immortal. This diffi- 

 culty seems to have been peculiarly felt by the very excellent Bishop 

 Butler. He was too cautious a reasoner, indeed, to enlist the termiMMA- 

 I'ERiAL into any part of his argument ; not pretending to determine, as^ 



G«n. ii. 7, 



t Ecclce. iii. 19, 



