and making refiftance to motion *.

For,

refine and fubtilize matter as much as you please, yet still it must retain its effential characteristic properties; and it is not very, credible that it should have two different sets of properties belonging to it, equally effential, and diametrically oppofite to each other. Of fuch an union as this, we have no instance in nature, nor is there any analogy that can lead us to expect it, or think it poffible. Nothing lefs, one should think, could induce any one to adopt fo harfh a conclufion, than the clearest and most decifive, evidence that

* The reader will perceive that here, and in other parts of this discourse, I adhere to the received opinion of the folidity, impenetrability, and vis inertia of matter. At the fame time, I am not ignorant that it has of late been controverted, and a very different fyftem advanced, by men of confiderable ability. But, notwithstanding the great ingenuity of their arguments, I must confefs myself not very willing to abandon the prin ciples of fuch men as Locke, Clarke, Newton, Maclaurin, &c. &c.; and perhaps the intelligent reader will be disposed to think this attachment to old opinions, fomething more than early prejudice, when he has perused with care Mr. De Luc's Lettres, Morales et Phyfiques, tom. i. D. 10, 11, 12, 13. 14; where he will find this very abftrufe queftion difcuffed, and in my conception decided, with a truly philofophical penetration, clearness, and precifion.

there

2

there cannot poffibly be any fuch thing as an immaterial fubftance. But fo far is this from being capable of proof, that the actual exiftence of fuch fubftances is a truth which refts on the highest authority, and is fupported by arguments which have never yet been overthrown.

In the very firft dawn of philofophy, two forts of fubftances, effentially different from each other, were fuppofed to exift, which were diftinguished by the names of MIND and BODY. This diftinction was exprefsly maintained by Plato, Ariftotle, and almost all the antient Theifts, from Thales down to Seneca. Many of them held also, that BODY, or MATTER, was in its own nature effentially paffive, inert, and incapable of moving itself, and that the only active power in the universe was mind, or incorporeal fubftance *. This

• Ικανωλάδα δεδεικται ψυχή των πανίων πρεσβύτατη, γινομενη τε αρχη κινησεως. Plato de Leg. 1. x. p. 952. Ed. Fic.

Της μεν ύλης το πασχειν εσι και το κινεισθαι· το δε κινείν και το #oler éteças duvapas. Ariftotle de Gen. & Corrupt. 1. ii. c. 9. p. 407. See also Phyf. I. viii. c. 5. p. 325. and Metaphyf. I. xii. c. 7. p. 741. And in his book de Anim. I. i. c. 2. he gives the opinions of feveral antient philofophers concerning MIND, Of whom the greater part agree in making it the principle of motion.

3

great

great principle they fuppofed to be diffused through every part of nature; they conceived it to be the immediate cause of vegetation, animal life, and intelligence, and they feem to have thought it impoffible that there ever should have been any fuch thing as motion in the world, had there never been any fubftance exifting in it but matter †.

This idea, instead of being reprobated by the wonderful discoveries and fuperior lights of modern philofophy, receives, on the contrary, the ampleft confirmation from them. It is well known to be an eftablished principle of this philosophy, to be laid down as

* See thofe well-known and beautiful lines in Virgil: Principio cælum et terras, &c. En. I. vi. v. 724. And again, Deum namque ire per omnes, &c. Georg. iv. v. 221.

On thefe principles of the antient philofophy, is founded the PLASTIC NATURE of the profound and learned Cudworth; and also that hypothefis of the universal dominion of MIND, and the existence of a difiinct, internal, active principle in every part of nature (not excepting even inanimate fubftances) which is maintained by the very ingenious author of a book lately published, entitled Antient Metaphyfics. This system, few, I conceive, will be difpofed to admit in all its extent; but yet the lovers of antient learning and philosophy will receive from it much curious information; and the advocates for immaterialism will find in it fome new arguments for that doctrine well worthy their attention.

the

the first and fundamental law of nature, that matter is in itself perfectly inactive, and incapable of changing the state it happens to be in, whether of motion or of reft; and that confequently all the motion now in the world (unless you fuppofe it to have been eternal) must have derived its origin from an immaterial agent. Nor is this all. Some of the most illustrious disciples of the Newtonian school contend farther, that not only the origin of motion, but the continuance of it alfo, requires the perpetual agency of fomething different from, and fuperior to, matter. They think it clear to demonftration, that all the great movements of the universe are both produced and carried on by the unremitted exertions of fome immaterial power; and that the existence and operation of fuch a power is not only probable but certain, and even abfolutely neceífary for the preservation of the courfe and order of nature *. The great Au

thor

* See Clarke's Dem. p. 74. Do's Evid. of Nat. and Rev. Religion, p. 14, 22. 10th ed. And Maclaurin's Account of Sir Ifaac Newton's Philofophy, b. iv. c. 9. f. 12, 13. p. 387.

Add to this, what has been afferted, and I think proved, by writers of confiderable eminence, that the properties of corpufcular

thor of nature himself, is confeffedly an incorporeal being. He was acknowledged to be fo by the most fagacious of the antient metaphyficians *; and the most celebrated of the modern, not only thought that the immateriality of the Supreme Being was demonftrable, but that he had himfelf demonstrated it †.

Affuming it therefore as an undoubted truth, that there is one incorporeal Being at leaft in the world, it follows that there may be more. And when we confider by what gradual and easy steps the scale of existence afcends from inanimate matter up to man; and what an infinite number of creatures of

puscular attraction and repulfion, obfervable in all material fubftances, and appealed to fometimes as proofs of their activity, are not powers inherent in the fubftances themselves (which in that cafe muft, in contradiction to an established rule in philosophy, act where they are not, that is, at a distance from their own furfaces) but the effects of fome active principle, entirely diftinct and effentially different from matter. Sir Ifaac Newton himself seems to have had fome idea of this kind in his thoughts. Optics, 2d ed. p. 376, 377..

* Arift. Metaph. 1. xii. c. 7. p. 742, and Meg. Znvwvos, P. 944. Nec vero Deus ipfe alio modo intelligi poteft, nifi mens foluta quædam & libera. Tufc. Quæft. 1. i. c. 27.

+ Mr. Locke's Effay on Hum. Und. b. iv. c. 3. f. 6; note p. 167; and b. iv. c. 10. p. 245, 250.

different