1809.] 
received its last polish and roundness in 
the hands of some French philosophers, 
as Condillac, and others, 
Having thus explained in a general 
way the grounds of my dissent from the 
system here spoken of, and shewn that 
they do not militate against the true basis 
of all philosophy, experience, in the only 
rational sense of the word, I shall, pro- 
ceed to state (as briefly asI can) the out- 
lines of asystem, which I should wish to 
see established in its room. The princi- 
pal points which I shall attempt to make 
out are, that the mind is something dis- 
tinct from matter ; that the thinking prin- 
ciple is one, or that thought is the result 
of the impression of many different ob- 
jects on the same conscious being; that 
this faculty of perceiving different impres- 
sions at once, of combining, comparing, 
and distinguishing them, is the great in- 
strument of knowledge and understand- 
Ing; that itis a totally. distinct thing from 
sensation, memory, or association ; that 
abstraction is the limitation of this faculty, 
or immediately follows from our imperfect 
conception of things, since, if we were 
to wait till we had’a perfect knowledge 
of all the parts of any object, we could 
never have any conception of it .what- 
ever; that reason is the power of disco- 
verlng, truth by means of certain, neces- 
sary connections between our ideas;.that 
the mind of man is active both,in thought 
and volition ;\ that motives do, not deter- 
mine the will mechanically; that self- 
love is not the sole spring of all our at- 
tachments and pursuits; and that there 
are other principles in our nature (as the 
love of action or power, and the love of 
truth) which are necessary, to account for 
the passions and actions of men, besides 
the love of pleasure, and aversion to 
dain, . 
And, first, I shall endeavour to shew 
that the mind itself is not material, or 
that the phenomena of the mind or think- 
ing principle do not originate in the com- 
mon properties of whatis called matter. 
The advocates for the doctrine of mate- 
rialism have been generally persons of 
strong understanding, and clear heads, 
who could not bear for a moment. the 
east uncertainty in any thing which was 
the object of their inquiries. The obscure 
and sileut, strange and mysterious opera- 
tious of thought, therefore, puzzled them 
greatly, and they wished to translate them 
mto some less hieroglyphicai language. 
They wanted to see how. the. mind _act- 
ed, as children like to leok intoa watch. 
Moniuty Mae. No. 181. 
of Metaphystcal Philosophy. 
ther, there we ought to stop. 
17 
They were eager to be acquainted with its 
shape and. figure, or at least with the place 
where it was lodged. Without some sen- 
sible token, or the testimony of persons 
who had inguired into the fact, they could 
not be certain whether they had a soul or 
not. Accordingly, many voyages of dis- 
covery were made for this purpose along 
the nerves, and the conduits of the ani- 
mal juices, Some thought they had 
found it seated on the top of the pineal 
gland,and others traced it to the cellular 
and membranous substance of the brain, 
where all the nerves terminate. Howe- 
ver this might be, it was agreed on all 
hands that the last agent in matter was 
the true seat or cause of thoughtand con- 
sciousness, because we had no right to sup- 
pose the existence of a principle beyond, 
of which we could have no positive evi- 
dence. But we might with just as much 
propriety insist on seeing the very 
‘thoughts themselves lying naked in the 
brain, or deny that they had ever existed, 
as conclude that we have got at the sear 
of the soul, because we can go no farther 
with our. dissections and experiments. 
The argument is a good one, if we sup- 
pose the mind to be one department of 
matter; When we cau trace the natural 
connection of causes and effects no. fur- 
Bat aif 
there is reason to believe that the mind 
is not material, then, by the nature of the 
supposition, it must lie out of the reach 
of allsuch experiments. The argumeat 
in favour of the materiality of the mind 
from the want of anatomical experiments 
to prove the contrary, therefore, first 
of all supposes that the mind is material, 
_and the subject of such experiments.— 
The simple argument by which I satisfy 
myself that mind is not the same thing 
as matter is this, that there is something 
in the nature of thought essentially dis- 
tinct from any idea we have of the com- 
mon properties and operations of matter, 
and that something so distinct in essence 
and in kind, cannot be resolved into 
any combination or modification . of 
other properties which in themselves 
are allowed to have no sort of relation 
or affinity to it. The jumbling of these 
together in different forms and quantities 
may produce an intermediate result dit- 
fering from them all, and yet partaking 
of the nature of all; but it cannot pro- 
duce a result, of which there is not the 
slightest trace or resemblance to be found 
inany ofthem. There is in matter no- 
thing at all like thought, or that ever 
D makes 
