In other places he fpeaks of the divine afflatus, as what gave life or Soul to matter.a And when he would expofe the forefights dying men have of their future happiness or mifery-he fais, I do not in the least question but this may happen to living men, endowed and actuated with that quickning afflatuswithout the fuppofition of an immaterial fubflantial Soul, to make up the compofition of

man.c

And again, Thus life, which is the light of man, has fome interval of non-existence between death and the refurrection-fo fares it with the life of man, when the body dies and turns to corruption; but life itself corrupts not, though it cease to bei

This is a paradox, that life (the blood) fhould have an interval of non-existence, and yet not antecedently corrupt. As alfo that, of the divine afflatus giving life or Soul to matter; and at the fame time living men be endowed and actuated with that quickning afflatus! in one cafe, it is represented as the caufal energy, in the other, as the inherent caused ability.

Moreover,

iP.ziz.

•P. 243.

a P. 242.

Moreover, we have found him affirming, that THALES the Milefian was the first who afferted the Soul to be auтoxieTov, a felf-moving fubftance and immortal.a

And that brutes

have felf-motion as well as men.**

a

P. 356.

• P. 375.

This

*The Doctor fais, Thales the Milefian was the first who afferted the Soul to be, a self-moving substance and immortal,

But what is there to his point in this; he might as well have faid, that Mofes's authority is not good, because he was the first who has given us any account of the origin of the Hebrew people and nation. For Dr. CUDWORTH obferves, Pherecydes Syrus and Thales were two of the most ancient Philofophers among the Greeks; and by the writer De placitis Philofophorum, Thales is thus joyned with Pythagoras and Plato; all thefe determined the Soul to be incorporeal, making it to be naturally self-moving, and an intelligible fubftance. What writer, has more justly expreffed the self-power of agency in man, than a modern ? It is improper to Speak of degrees of natural liberty and neceffity. Between determining ourfelves and not determining ourselves, there is no conceivable medium. Every conscious act of my volition, must be entirely mine, and cannot be more or less mine.

Voluntary determination is not a complex, but a fimple effect, which admits but of one caufe or principle, it being a contradiction to fuppofe, that the determination of a being may be partly his, and partly fomewhat else's.e- -Whoever therefore was the first that afferted the Soul to be a felf-moving fubftance, faid nothing

a Intellectual system. p. 21.

Price's review of principal queftions. p. 365, 365.

This inclination to the mechanism of mind or fpirit, runs throughout the book. But is it poffible to read that book, and from fuch performance, conclude, any kind of specific agreement between the human and the brutal powers ?

There may indeed, be a felf-moving power in both, but with no analogy, respecting the nature, compass, and tendency of the ability. For the one has principally to do with GOD, in all its operations; and the other has never yet discovered any other confcious concern, than what it has with the material fenfible fyftem.- One fingle paffage in St.

Paul's

thing more than what any man might have faid from the beginning.

For,

As far as we have ideas, there are things necessarily real of which they are ideas. Ideas derive themselves from things; or they fuppofe independent, neceffary truth and intelligibles.However,

Mofes, the moft ancient hiftorian, tells us, that the Soul' of man is a felf-moving and intelligent fubftance, in the account he gives of the divine inftruction to Cain, if thou doeft well halt thou not be accepted? if thou doeft not well fin lieth at the door! No language can more ftrongly exprefs the natural powers of free agency in man. And indeed the whole pentateuch is in full evidence, that he has taught this doctrine of the human Soul. Nay, whatever hiftory we have of humanity, in this point, harmonizeth. And all juridical procefs, fuppofeth this freedom, or power of beginning action.

a Ib. p. 300.

Paul's writings will determine the fpecifical difference, not only of men's moral character, but of men from brutes: we walk by faith, not by fight. And wherever men have done fo, they must have had, from the beginning, an idea of themselves as immortal, as well as immaterial. To behave wholly as pilgrims and ftrangers here, as all our fathers were, will infer a principle of felf-motion, not only as old as Thales the Milefian, but as Enoch the Antediluvian, who walked with God. Specifically different from that principle in brutes, in its nature, and also in its confequences. But even Dr. Coward has himself owned, that the beafts fhall wholly perish.

As to the argument for materiality, thus formed, viz. Immaterial beings in the fame Species, we must fuppose to be equal in perfection of operation, quatenus immaterial, be the fubject-matter in which it is never fo much indifpofed; for what obftruction can matter make to an immaterial being which can penetrate it? confequently, every creature endowed with fuch an immaterial fubftance would be equally perfect in his operations too, which

we

we fee manifeftly contradict reafon and expe

rience.a

This reafoning will not be readily allowed. For though the Soul of man should be immaterial, its being given to matter, (in the language of this writer,) by a divine afflatus, or matter being endowed and actuated by that quickning afflatus; yet it does not even thence follow, that it must be equal in perfection of operation; because fuch penetration of matter, here fuppofed, would not confift with the laws of this fyftem: and its ability of fuch penetration, feems to be that very perfection it finally acquires, by virtuously afferting a reasonable dominion over those animal or material impreffions, made by this sensible system, and communicated to this percipient through that organized body, to which it is given by the divine afflatus.

The immateriality of the intelligent fubftance, will not therefore infer an equal perfection of operation throughout the species ; because no fuch penetration of matter, as is hereintended, can be inferrable from its immateriality.

Os,

a P. 116.