"That Lady Matter, your memorialist, hath been miserably mauled by a number of her pretenders, particularly by one, calling himself Newton, who seemed to be almost as much her admirer as Des Cartes himself, and to whom she was ever fond of displaying her highest attractions, and even secrets concealed from the rest; that this deceiver, though still closely following her, hath really jilted your memorialist, and fallen in love with a light sort of minx, known by the name of Inanity Vacuum; that, not satisfied with this gross affront, he hath aspersed your memorialist by the title or attribute of vis inertia, as if she were no better than a mere passive lump; that, as a consequence to this most abusive scurrility, he hath, in the opinion of his followers, stripped her of cogitation in its lowest degree, as a poor unthinking creature; and finally, that through the encouragement given by him, and other dabblers, in ideas, one Berkeley hath published a libel against her, wherein he attempts to destroy the opinion of her very existence. Now, gentlemen, as you are all satisfied, that there is no other being but herself,-who can think, will, or act; to you she flies for 'protection against the aforesaid breaches of privilege and outrages. Give her leave to hope, that you the most lively and frisky people in the world, and who exhibit in your persons such an experimental demonstration of the active powers she possesses, will no longer suffer the poor Britons to be superstitiously haunted by a belief in spirits, but will be pleased to dictate to them the fashion of materialism. There is no people on earth more addicted to fashion than they; and though they pretend to hate you, they do nothing but mimic you in every thing; insomuch, that an English, Scotch, or Irish man, not Frenchified, is by themselves deemed fit only for the canaille. Make them sensible, that if they set up for souls, their priests may happen to damn them, in case they should catch them at a short turn towards a bawdy-house, or a gaming-table; and that materialism may serve them perfectly well for Arianism, Scepticism, Deism, and other their systems of freedom, ecclesiastical or civil, which, for a long time, they have been at so much trouble to maintain. This summary opinion, without stopping short, or going farther, will at once do every thing for them they wish. It is soul only that enslaves and plagues them. You that have done so much for their colonies, do something now for themselves. Be assured, this one masterly stroke, without costing you a single livre, will soon bring them under your yoke. Fighting, you may perceive, after a trial of seven centuries, will

never do; you ought to know by this time, that the English obstinacy will hardly ever yield to force; but that, of all people, they are the most easily cajoled. It is but a few years ago since almost all the fine ladies in the British isles, and not a few of the nobles and gentry of the other sex, were ambitious to wear the livery of a French harlot, and were far from taking it ill to be told, that they wished to be like her in every respect. If a very handsome kind of cap were invented at Paris, and worn at Versailles, as a signal of proof, that the wearer believed there was neither a God in heaven, nor a soul in any human creature, all the British ladies would wear it, and allow their lovers and husbands to construe the mode as they pleased." Not to let this fine lady, now she pretends to the faculty of thinking, talk on eternally, our inquiry must draw a little closer to her pretensions. If angels and men are but matter, then angels and men, if agents at all, can be but necessary agents; there can be neither virtue nor vice in the universe; no good, no evil action was ever done, or possibly could be done; no one can be rewarded or punished for what he was compelled to do by a necessity of his nature, and by the power of extrinsical causes and motives operating upon him. How absurd would it be to suppose, that either angel or man should ever be made happy or miserable, in consequence of actions which he had neither power nor liberty to avoid? So, however it happens, virtue and happiness, on the one side, and sin and misery on the other, are inseparably united, in every intelligent being, in angels and men. Angels and men therefore are morally free agents, and as such, must have somewhat in them above matter, which can neither act, nor freely act. To deny the truth of this doctrine, is to deny the being, or at least justice, of a Creator. Here comes out a point absolutely demonstrated, that the materialist neither is or can be any thing better than a gross Atheist. Lest the Atheist should here urge, that I beg the principle of connexion between virtue and happiness, and between sin and misery, by referring to a future judgment, not yet demonstrated to him, I deny the fact. I appeal only to the present life for both connexions, and insist they are made evident even here, not only by all the laws of man, but by the general course of things, to say nothing of self-approbation, or remorse, on which two subjects I dare not appeal to the breast of any Atheist, though I do to that of all other men. It is readily confessed, that the god of this world, as he is styled by the apostle, is now and then permitted to raise his servants to

wealth and power by various vices; and to persecute, even to poverty and death, the best of men for their virtues. This, however, is but now and then; in general it is otherwise. Yet, is wealth or power in this world, happiness? Or is poverty and death, misery? Certainly not, unless conscience hath been fast asleep all the time, and unless the Atheist can demonstrate, there can be no judgment to come, no life after this. If matter can think, will, and choose, it must be on the strength of some qualities and powers, very opposite to all those in it wherewith we are acquainted, and not only utterly unknown to us, but absolutely unknowable. To say, there may be in matter such qualities and powers, for aught we know, and to infer from thence, that, in fact, it does think, is saying just nothing. Such conclusions, if admissible in Bedlam, can pass on mankind nowhere else. Its incapacity of moving itself, which we know, in any manner that hath the least appearance of design, or reason, wholly precludes the supposition of such qualities or powers. But matter, in some instances, as of light and electricity, is so attenuated, and moves with a rapidity so equal to that of thought, that its capacity of thinking may from thence be well enough supposed. We must be allowed here to insist, that it never moves at all, but is only moved; and even so, never is moved with a rapidity equal to that of thought, if thought must be called a motion, which I flatly deny. Between thought and motion there is not so much as a bare analogy, but only as the former may be a cause of the latter. The thought of a man lying motionless in his bed, ranges in one moment beyond the fixed stars, whereas light is too sluggish to do the same perhaps in less than half an hour; for it takes seven minutes to come hither from the sun, which, in comparison, is but from next door. Query, Whether the man can be said to know what thought is, who takes it for the same as motion, or imagines that mere motion may, at any time, produce it, any otherwise than as it may, by accident, furnish an occasion of thinking to somewhat of a very different nature from matter? It is true, fire and fermentation seem to shew, that matter is sometimes so circumstanced, as to produce motion in and of itself. Were it so (which is a fact too disputable to reason from), what is this motion to thinking? Does the exploding gunpowder, or the fermenting ale, discover any signs of thought, or a greater aptitude to thinking, than a mere stone or block? But the nerves may be so finely spun, and the animal spirits so attenuated, as to think. To think! we wait to see it

proved. They may indeed become fitter instruments for soul to work with, than cables, or iron in fusion. But by what arguments is their capacity of thinking supported? They are easily moved; but do they move themselves? Or is motion and thinking the same thing? If they are, the ball, moving from the mouth of a cannon, thinks; and, as it moves with greater force, is a superior thinker. The philosopher, not content to think with people of common sense, sets himself to investigate the entire nature of soul and matter; thinks rationally enough for a step or two; but, pushing himself and his subjects into the dark corner of a deeper inquiry, where he hath neither datum nor experiment to work on, is quickly involved in confusion and nonsense; yet his vanity still predominating, comes forth with a system, wherein soul is annihilated, and matter set up as a thinker. To support this, appearances are to be sought for, which art and sophistry are to thicken into a sort of solidity. As he leaves nothing in the universe, but matter, he hath abundance of dust to throw, which sticks wherever vice hath predisposed the eye to receive it. If he was not quite a fool when he began his inquiry, he comes out at the end on't so absolute a fool, as not to have sense enough left to perceive it; no, his cunning (for he is now a knave too) keeps him in countenance; and his proselytes, who greatly wanted the benefit of deception, cry him up as a genius, superior to Newton. If any thing however could possibly prove, that a man may be no better than a mere machine, the exhibition of this (what shall I call him?) would be the shrewdest argument to prove the inutility of a soul. Inquiries about religion, and every thing else, when pushed beyond the verge of human capacity, leave the mind in such a wilderness of probabilities, improbabilities, appearances, uncertainties, that the inquirer can with no safety fix on any thing. Neither man, nor any other created being, can, by his own efforts, arrive at a perfect, or even competent knowledge of himself. Our Maker alone knows us. All arguments against the being of our souls can result in nothing but the denial of a Maker'; that is, in Atheism, as they did of old, and are now doing again. It is no wonder, if I cannot tell how I bend my finger, that I should not be able, by the mere light of my nature, to tell how my soul and body are connected; nor, to the satisfaction of a wilful infidel, demonstrate the necessity in me of somewhat, wholly different from, and superior to matter, in order to account for thought, choice, and action, in myself. Let nature say what she will (and, indeed, a

great deal she does say), much is still left for God to say by revelation, to put the being of a soul beyond all doubt; and so much He hath said, with such proofs of his saying it, as leave no room for doubt in a mind that will attend to them. As a man, with the helps that have been afforded him, may know enough of his mental faculties, of his passions, appetites, and affections in a state of natural corruption, and of the trinity of natures, a perfect vegetable, a perfect animal, and yet imperfect angel, which constitute his composition; so, if he sets himself philosophically to pry into either the spirit or matter, whereof he consists, a sort of knowledge, no way requisite to his happiness, he finds himself so lost and bewildered, that at one time he may think he hath no body, and at another that he hath no soul. As his eye cannot be an instrument of light to itself, but by rebound and reflection, so a man must look abroad to know himself. His Maker alone can teach him this knowledge; and does it, but so only as not greatly to encourage his itch of speculation, but rather so as to form him for the government of a superior being, which his dependent nature renders necessary to his happiness. Having said so much of our bodies, I purpose, presently, after dismissing the subject of matter, to say somewhat of our souls. To return however to common sense, which the philosopher ought to respect, and to the light of nature, which he idolizes, at least in himself, I insist, matter can only perform the office of an instrument in sensation, where its power in the human make is confessedly greatest. The eye, considered as an eye only, cannot see. The finger, considered only as a finger, can by no means feel. Yet seeing and feeling are thinking. But, if the eye and finger are able to think, they have still a great deal more to do. It is wonderful that Locke should so much as intimate a possibility in matter to think, after dwelling so copiously as he does, on reflex acts of the mind, and ideas of reflection. The eye, as an instrument of light, or give it what higher power we will, can by no means see that it sees, nor the finger feel that it feels. Per se they can neither see nor feel, much less can the former perceive that it sees, nor the latter that it feels. These acts are confessedly performed by somewhat more inward. Were it otherwise, the eye of a man newly dead, or of an ox, prepared for the camera obscura, might still see, for they still refract the light to the retina. The finger of a man too, chopped off from his hand, might feel the floor on which it is thrown. But that inward somewhat, which sees and feels through