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18 Basis for a new System of Metaphysical Philosophy. [Feb. 1; 
the most distant approaches to it: the 
two ideas are utterly irreconcileable. 
To suppose that thought and féeling 
are only matter and motion disguised in a 
particular way, is,as if we were to believe 
that acircle may be composed of straight 
lines, or that a tune may be reflected 
from the colours of the rainbow. This 
argument has been often insisted on, but 
Ido not think it has ever been satistacto- 
torily answered. The only answer which 
has ever been attempted is an appeal to 
our ignorance, which comes a little awk- 
wardly from those who would give an 
account of every thing. They Say that 
matter in itself undergoes many changes 
and modifications; and produces many 
results, altogether unlike any thing that 
we could predict beforehand, and that 
mind may be one of those remote and sub- 
tle modifications, in other words, that it 
is matter so organized as to produce the 
finer, moreetherial, operations of thought. 
But I would ask, whether by a modifica- 
tron of matter, be meant any thing more 
than a certain combination of the pro- 
perties of matter, aud whether any com- 
bination of these can represent the na- 
ture of thought? In all the changes pro- 
duced by matter and motion, there is 
nothing but matter and motion still: di- 
vide, sub-divide, multiply them how you 
will, you get nothing but some modifica- 
tion of the same qualities; the form, the 
arrangement, the degree, the quantity, 
and directiun are different, but the 
things themselves are just the same. 
All the experiments that have been 
tried on various substauces have never 
discovered them to be any thing else 
but the old original properties of mat- 
ter, such as extension, figure, soli- 
dity, motion, &c. combined under differ- 
€nt circumstances. There is some ana- 
logy still left, which determines the class 
to which they belong; indeed, if it were 
not for something of this sort, it would 
be hard to say, in what furnace or alem- 
bic they could be found. When an in- 
stance isimet with of matter having by 
its compositions and decompositions re- 
fined itself into any thing which was not 
matter, orof its having acquired any other 
-yeal distinguishing properties besides 
those which it had at first, it will then be 
time enough toconsider whether thought 
and conception may not be among the 
number. It is perhaps easier to explain 
this distinction im matters of feeling, 
‘than with respect to our ideas. Thus 
the sense of pain is surely very different 
from the prick of a pin by which it may 
be occasioned. Hartley has endeavoured 
1 
in a very ingenious and elaborate way to 
account forthe sense of pain by suppo- 
sing it to arisefrom the solution of conti- 
nuity, or violent separation and straining 
of the parts of which the nerves are 
composed, which communicates the like 
disorder to the brain. Now tis separa- 
tion of parts or solution of physical con~ 
tinuity does not give me the smallest m- 
sight into the nature of pain. I cannot 
understand what there is in common be- 
tween the two things. It might as well, 
I conceive, be said that the tearing asun- 
der the limbs of a wax doll gives one 
the idea of pain ; or that the trunks of 
the enchanted trees in Tasso or in Virgil 
might have felt the same grief and re- 
morse when their branches were lopped 
off, though they had not been inhabited 
by ahuman soul. As far as matter and 
motion-are concerned, it must be quite in- 
different whether certain parts of a body 
are in one position or another, whether 
they are in a state of separation or 
union, or violently thrust backwards and 
forwards from one to the other. As mere 
dull inanimate matter, they can neither 
know nor feel any thing of the jerks, the 
twitchings, the jostlings, or blows they 
encounter in these sudden commotions, 
Nor does it alter the case or advance 
the argument one jotto say that the sub- 
stance of the brain or nerves is of a finer 
and subtler texture, that itis curiously or- 
ganized, or endued with wonderful acti- 
vity. Let us suppose the arrangement of 
the parts to be as exquisite as it will. still 
‘it is only an arrangement of unfeeling 
matter. This arrangement may produce 
an infinite difference in its mechanical 
motions, but what you want to produce 
is the power of distinguishing pleasure 
and pain where there was.none. . It is a 
transition trom insensibility to sensation, 
from death to life, that is tobe accounted 
for; and a change of place, size, or form, 
ina parcel of physical atoms does not 
make the least alteration in this respect. 
In short, we can never conceive af 
thought or feeling as implied in any of 
the simple, known properties of matter ; 
and this being granted,as I think it must, 
it seems very unphilosophical to argue, 
that mind is notwithstanding only some 
modification of matter, since no modi- 
fication of matter can entirely change 
its nature, or produce a distinct result 
from aridiculous combination of a nume- 
ber of particles, not one of which could 
contribute any thing towards it. There 
is not, as it seems to me, the same absur- 
dity in supposing the mind to be united 
to matter, or to be acted upon by it, as 
in 
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