contained in the vehicle, or the foul itfelf.

Indeed every thing relating to fleep, is a very puzzling phenomenon, on the fuppofition of the distinction between the foul and the body, especially the little evidence that can be pretended of the foul being employed at all in a ftate of really found fleep, exclufive of dreaming. And furely, if there be a foul distinc from the body, and it be fenfible of all the changes that take place in the corporeal fyftem to which it is attached, why does it not perceive that state of the body which is termed fleep; and why does it not contemplate the ftate of the body and brain during fleep, which might afford matter enough for reasoning and reflection? If no new ideas could be tranfmitted to it at that time, it might employ itself upon the ftock which it had acquired before, if they really had inhered in it, and belonged to it taking the opportunity of ruminating upon its old ideas, when it was fo circumftanced, that it could acquire no new

ones.

All this we should naturally expect if the foul was a substance really diftinct from the body, and if the ideas properly belonged to this fubftance, fo that it was capable of carrying them all away with it, when the body was reduced to duft. The foul, during the fleep of the body, might be expected to approach to the ftate in which it would be when

the

the body was dead, death being often compared to a more found fleep. For if it be capable of thinking and feeling when the powers of the body fhall entirely ceafe, it might be capable of the fame kind of fenfation and action when thofe powers are only fufpended.

SECTION VIII.

OBJECTIONS to the Syftem of Materialism confidered.

MOST of the objections that have been

made to the poffibility of the powers of fenfation and thought belonging to matter, are entirely founded on a mistaken notion of matter, as being neceffarily inert and impenetrable, and not a thing poffeffed of no other powers than those of attraction and repulfion, and such as may be confiftent with them. With fuch objections as these I have properly no concern, because they do not affect my peculiar fyftem. Some objections, however, which are founded on the popular notion of matter, it may be worth while to confider; because while they remain unnoticed, they may impede the reception of any fyftem that bears. the name of materialism, how different foever it may be from any thing that has hitherto been fo denominated. I fhall, therefore, briefly reply to every objection that can be G thought

thought confiderable, either in itself, or on account of the person who has proposed it.

OBJECTION I. From the difficulty of conceiving how Thought can arife from Matter.

IT is faid we can have no conception how fenfation or thought can arife from matter, they being things fo very different from it, and bearing no fort of refemblance to any thing like figure or motion; which is all that can refult from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.

But this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance. Different as are the properties of fenfation and thought, from fuch as are ufually afcribed to matter, they may, nevertheless, inhere in the fame fubftance, unless we can fhew them to be abfolutely incompatible with one another. There is no apparent refemblance between the ideas of fight, and those of hearing, or Smelling, &c. and yet they all exift in the fame mind, which is poffeffed of the very different fenfes and faculties appropriated to each of them. Befides, this argument, from our not being able to conceive how a thing can be, equally affects the immaterial system: for we have no more conception how the powers of fenfation and thought can inhere in an immaterial, than in a material fubftance. For, in fact, we have no diftinct idea either

of

of the property, or of the substance of mind or fpirit. Of the latter we profefs to know nothing, but that it is not matter; and even of the property of perception, it seems to be as impoffible that we fhould fully comprehend the nature of it, as that the eye should see itself.

Befides, they who maintain the intimate union of substances fo difcrepant in their natures as matter and immaterial spirit, of which they certainly cannot pretend to have any conception, do with a very ill grace urge any objection against the fyftem of materialism, derived from our ignorance of the manner in which a principle of thought may be fuperadded to matter.

I would obferve, that by the principle of thought, I mean nothing more than the power of fimple perception, or our confciousness of the prefence and effect of fenfations and ideas. For I fhall, in these difquifitions, take it for granted, that this one property of the mind being admitted, all the particular phenomena of fenfation and ideas, refpecting their retention, affociation, &c. and the various faculties. of the mind, to which those affections of our fenfations and ideas give rife, as memory, judgment, volition, the paffions, &c. will admit of a fatisfactory illuftration on the principles of vibration, which is an affection of a material fubftance. I, therefore, admit of no argument for the fpirituality of the foul, from the confideration of the exquifiteness, fubtlety, or

G 2

com

complexness of the mental powers, on which much stress has been laid by fome; there being in matter a capacity for affections as fubtle and complex as any thing that we can affirm concerning thofe that have hitherto been called mental affections. I confider Hartley's Theory of the Mind, as a practical anfwer to all objections of this kind.

26

OBJECTION II. From abftract Ideas.

"Matter," fays Mr. Wollafton, p. 357, can never by itself entertain abstracted, or "general ideas, fuch as many in our minds 66 are. For could it reflect upon what paffes "within itfelf, it could poffibly find there

nothing but material and particular impref"fions. Abstract and metaphyfical ideas "could not be found upon it."

But Mr. Locke and others have obferved, that all actual ideas are, in fact, particular, and that abftraction is nothing more than leaving out of a number of resembling ideas, what is peculiar to each, and confidering only what is common to them all.

OBJECTION III.

From the influence of Reafons.

Mr. Wollafton argues, that the mind cannot be material, because it is influenced by

reasons.