the vileft Part of Matter a proper Vehicle, Habi tation, or Body, for the most glorious Angel, who can deny? But what then? What will this prove? Will this juftify our confounding two diftinct Ideas ? Muft we confound Matter with Motion, Body with Soul, because we find them exifting or united together? Does not the very Expreffion of putting Powers. and Ways of Operation into Bodies, imply, that those Powers are diftinct from Bodies, fomething fuperadded to them by the omnipotent Power of God? Something not included in the Idea of Body, not ef fential to it: Why then must they be confounded together? When we read, Gen. ii. 7. That the Lord God formed Man of the Duft of the Ground, and breathed into his Noftrils the Breath of Life, and Man, became a living Soul. Would it not be a strange Conclufion to infer from thence, that that very Dust of the Earth, out of which his Body was formed, was that very Breath of Life which was breathed into him, by which he became a living Soul? Yet would there be quite as much Reason and Truth in the one Conclufion as in the other. In the Cafe of Gravitation of Matter towards Matter, is it fuppofed to be an effential Quality, inherent in the very BruteMatter, of which the feveral Orbs are compofed? Or is it conceived to be a Power or Direction fuperadded to it, by an immediate Impreffion communicated from God? I affure you, Madam, there are Difficulties in either Suppofition not eafily furmounted.. Would there be any Abfurdity in fuppofing, that, as the whole Syftem is under the Pro-. tection, Direction, and Guidance of God's univerfal Providence, without which not the vileft Infect, no,

nor

nor even a Hair of our Heads, could fall to the Ground; fo every particular Orb, every Branch of the Syftem might be under the Direction of fome fuperior Intelligence, who might be confidered as the Angel, the Spirit, or Soul of that particular Orb, whofe whole Province might be the Guidance and Direction of its Motions. This, I am fure, is more agreeable to the Philofophy of Scripture, and the Sentiments of that Oracle, from whom Sir Ifaac is fuppofed to have borrowed his Principles, or at leaft fo much Light as to enable him to improve and complete his System:

That Matter cannot move itfelf; that Reft or Refiftance are its effential Qualities; that Motion, or the Power by which any Portion of Matter is moved, is diftinct from the Matter fo moved; that every Kind or Degree of Motion fuppofes a moving Power or Principle, which must be immaterial; that the Matter moved, and the Power moving, are intirely diftinct, are Principles fo plain and obvious, as not to admit of a Debate or a Question. Every Degree of Motion, therefore, impreffed upon Matter, neceffarily fuppofes an immaterial Principle, by whom the Impreffion is made. And, notwithstanding all this to imagine, that Creatures endued with the Powers of fpontaneous Motion, Thinking, and Volition, as the Brutes are acknowledged to be, fhould have no fpiritual or immaterial Principle in them, fhould be nothing but mere Matter, is to me an inconceivable Point of Philofophy. Sure I am, that Mr. Locke's firft and cooleft Thoughts before he was whetted by Oppofition, and warmed by Controverfy, were very different from what he afterwards advanced, in the Course

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Course of his Difpute, with the Bishop. He feems to express himself very clearly upon this Point, pag. 159, Edit. 8vo. The primary Ideas (fays he) we have peculiar to Body, as contradiftinguished to Spirit, are the Cobefion of folid, and confequently, feparable Parts, and a Power of communicating Motion by Impulse; thefe, I think, are the original Ideas proper and peculiar to Body; for Figure is but the Confequence of finite Extenfion. The Ideas we have, belonging and peculiar to Spirit, are Thinking and Will, or a Power of putting Body into Motion by Thought, and, which is confequent to it, Liberty. For, as Body cannot but communicate its Motion by Impulse to another Body, which it meets with at Reft; fo the Mind can put Bodies into Motion, or forbear to do so, as it pleafes. Here, I think, the learned Author has expreffed himself in very plain and intelligible Language. And yet this fame excellent Perfon, in his Controverfy with the Bishop, falls into a quite different Way of Thinking and Manner of Expreffion: He frequently afferts, or ftrongly infinuates, the Poffibility of Thinking Matter, and endeavours to prove it by fuch Mediums, as his cooler Thoughts would never have entertained, or rejected with Contempt. Hear how he reafons in his third Letter, pag. 396, 397. Your firft Argument I take to be this; that, according to me, the Knowledge we have being by our Ideas, and our Idea of Matter in general, being a folid Substance; and our Idea of Body being a folid, extended, figured Substance; if I admit Matter to be capable of Thinking, I confound the Idea of Matter with the Idea of Spirit. To which I anfwer, No; no more than I confound the Idea of Matter with the Idea of a Horfe, when I say that Matter

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Matter in general is a folid extended Subftance, and that a Horfe is a material Animal, or an extended folid Subftance with Sense and spontaneous Motion.

The Idea of Matter is an extended folid Subftance; wherever there is fuch a Subftance, there is Matter and the Effence of Matter, whatever other Qualities not contained in that Effence it shall please God to fuperadd to it. For Example, God creates an extended folid Substance without fuperadding any thing else to it, and fo we may confider it at reft: To fome Parts he fuperadds Motion, but it has ftill the Essence of Matter; other Parts of it he frames into Plants, with all the Excellencies of Vegetation, Life, and Beauty, which is to be found in a Rofe, or a Peach-tree, &c. but it is ftill but Matter: To other Parts he adds Senfe and fpontaneous Motion, and thofe other Properties that are to be found in an Elephant. Hitherto, it is not doubted, but the Power of God may go; and that the Properties of a Rofe, a Peach, or an Elephant, fuperadded to Matter, change not the Properties of Matter, but Matter is in thefe Things Matter fill. But if one go one Step further, and venture to fay, God may give to Matter Thought, Reason, and Volition, as well as Senfe and Spontaneous Motion, there are Men ready presently to limit the Power of the Omnipotent Creator, and tell us he cannot do it; because it deftroys the Effence, and changes the effential Properties of Matter. To make good which Affertion, they have no more to fay, but that Thought and Reafon are not included in the Effence of Matter. I grant it; but whatever Excellency, not contained in its Effence, be fuperadded to Matter, it does not deftroy the Effence of Matter, if it leaves it an extended folid Subftance: Wherever that is, there is the Effence

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Effence of Matter; and if every Thing of greater Perfection, fuperadded to fuch a Substance, deftroys the Effence of Matter, what will become of the Effence of Matter in a Plant or an Animal, whofe Properties far exceed thofe of a mere extended folid SubStance.

But it is further urged, that we cannot conceive how Matter can think; I grant it: But to argue from thence, that God therefore cannot give to Matter a Faculty of Thinking, is to fay, God's Omnipotency is limited to a narrow Compass, because Man's Understanding is fo; and bring down God's infinite Power ta the Size of our Capacities, If God can give no Power to any Part of Matter, but what Men can account for from the Effence of Matter in general; if all fuch Qualities and Properties must destroy the Effence, or change the effential Properties of Matter, which are to our Conceptions above it, and we cannot conceive to be the natural Confequences of that Effence; it is plain, that the Effence of Matter is deftroyed, and its ef fential Properties changed in most of the fenfible Parts of this our Syftem: For it is visible, that all the Planets have Revolutions about certain remote Centers, which I would have any one explain, or make conceivable, by the bare Effence or natural Powers depending on the Effence of Matter in general, without fomething fuperadded to that Effence, which he cannot conceive; for the moving of Matter in a crooked Line, or the Attraction of Matter by Matter, is all that can be faid in the Cafe; either of which, is above our reach to derive from the Effence of Matter or Body in general; though one of these two muft unavoidably be allowed to be fuperadded, in this Inftance, to the Effence of Matter in general. The Om

nipotent