"hold (prife) of them, any more than they "have upon it. We muft, therefore, have "recourfe to the chriftian fyftem, according "to which God acts upon matter by an act "of his will only." But if the substance of a fpirit cannot act upon matter, how can the mere volition, which is the mere act of a spirit, affect it?

Mr. Baxter, who afcribes fo much to the agency of the Deity, and fo little to matter, is, as might be expected, peculiarly embarraffed with this difficulty. According to him, all the properties of matter, as attraction, repulfion, and cohefion, are the immediate agency of the divine Being. Confequently, as we perceive material things by means of these their powers, it but too plainly follows, that, in fact, matter is wholly fuperfluous; for if it exifts, all its operations and effects are refolvable into the pure unaided operation of the Deity. Such a philofopher cannot but be puzzled to answer Bilhop Berkley, who fuppofed that the divine Being himself presented the ideas of all things to our minds, and that nothing material exifts. The following ap pears to me to be a very poor attempt to maintain the real use of matter to imprefs the mind.

"Those philofophers," fays he, vol. ii. p. 333," who allow the objects of our ideas to “exist, affirm, I think, without neceffity, "that the fovereign mind produces the ideas

" of them in us, in fo far, I mean, as the

objects themselves may do this, or other"wife than by co-operation. Matter I know "cannot act of itself, as it acts only by re"fiftance. But if the refistance between the "matter of our bodies and other matter be "enough to excite the idea of their refiftance "in our minds, it would be unnecessary to fuppofe God to excite that idea, and the "refiftance itfelf to have no effect. And if "we do not allow the matter of our bodies "affects our minds directly, and by itself, "the union between them may feem to be, " in a great meafure, to no purpose.

"

: What does this amount to, but that, fince matter does exist, it must be of fome ufe, though Mr. Baxter's general hypothefis, agreeably to which he here afferts, that matter cannot act of itfelf, leaves fo very little to it, that it might very well have been spared. Pity that: fo mischievous a thing as he every where reprefents matter to be, fhould have been introduced at all, when, without the aid of fuperior power, it could not do even that mifchief.

Mr. Baxter feems to have thought that the connection between the foul and the body fubfifted only during a ftate of vigilance; for that, though during fleep, the foul, as he fays, vol. ii. p. 11, "is always alive and "percipient, and is never without fome real

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perception, it moft evidently crafes to act

"and

* and perceive by the body." It is, therefore, in fact in an unembodied ftate. It is pity that we have no evidence of what paffes in that ftate; but that in the moment of the re-union of the foul to the body, on awaking from fleep, all that paffed in this intermediate ftate is forgotten:

Whatever paffes in dreams, this philofopher fuppofes not to be any thing that the foul is concerned in, but the work of other intellectual agents, which occupy the sensory the moment that the foul abandons it. If we ask why the foul thus abandons the fenfory, he fays, it is on account of the "expence of animal spirits, "neceffary to keep the former impreffions *patent, and to produce new ones," and that "the fatigue of continuing to do this is in

tolerable." But as it is not the foul that is fatigued, but the body only, is there not the fame expence of animal fpirits, whether the proper foul of the man, or fome other fpirit, be at work in the fenfory? The fame quan tity of thought must be attended with the fame expence of animal spirits.

The author of La vraye Philofophie has a very fingular manner of helping this great dif ficulty concerning the foul acting upon the body. I fhall only quote the paffage without making any remark upon it. "Without doubt," fays he, p. 277," it is not by thought

that the foul moves the body, for as it is not by thought, that the foul enriches cor

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"poreal

poreal bodies with colours and extenfion, "neither is it by thought that it acts upon "matter, and puts it in motion. It does "both these things, and many others of a "fimilar nature, by its own energy. The "fupreme Being, in creating it, willed that "it fhould have, in an eminent manner, the properties of matter, without having the "imperfections of it."

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Others think to provide for the neceffary mutual action and re-action between foul and body, by imagining that there may be fomething like common properties between them, though by this means they evidently destroy the diftinction between these two substances. This is remarkably the cafe with the author of Letters on Materialism.

"You tell us," fays he, p. 73, "that mat"ter and spirit are always defcribed, as having "not one common property, by means of which "they can affect, or act upon each other."This may be true in the opinion of those "philofophers, who confider all matter as paffive and inert, void of every species of "force, action, or energy. But probably such

negative attributes can fcarcely conftitute "the nature of any being. In every fenti“ment, indeed, the properties of these two "fubftances muft, in part at leaft, effentially "differ, because their natures are ever faid to "be diffimilar; yet it does not hence follow "that they may not be endowed with powers " whereby

"whereby mutually to affect and act upon "each other. A being of a fuperior order may act on an inferior one, placed higher on the fcale. It has acquired nobler pro

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perties, but it is not therefore deprived of "fuch inferior qualities as are not unalliable "with the more exalted fpecies. Particular"ly, this must be the cafe where the fuperior

being conftitutes a part of the fame ge"neral fyftem? Thus will the foul be able "to act on matter, and confequently on its own body, which experience likewife feems "to confirm.

"Why may not matter alfo act upon fpi"rit, at least the most exalted and refined part

of matter, in a manner perhaps inexpli"cable, but analogous to its inferior nature "and powers? Thus reciprocally will the "body act upon the foul. For this nothing "feems more requifite than that matter, in "its component elements, fhould be poffeffed "of an active force, justly proportioned to "their order, and rank of being. It muft "refide in the elements, and these must be

fimple, because no force could ever inhere "in a fubftance ever divifible; and were not "the elements active, their compounds never "could be; no more than a percipient brain "could arife from impercipient particles. "The material elements then, I conceive to "be fimple and active, active in various de

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grees, according to their fcale of being, or "the part they are by infinite wisdom deftin

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"ed