the brains of some dreaming philosophers. Is it not demonstration to a person of your sense, that, since you cannot find it, there is no such thing? In order to set so hopeful a genius right in this matter, we have sent you an answer to the ill-grounded sophisms of those crack-brained fellows, and likewise an easy mechanical explication of perception or thinking.

One of their chief arguments is, that self-consciousness cannot inhere in any system of matter, because all matter is made up of several distinct beings, which never can make up one individual thinking being.

This is easily answered by a familiar instance. In every jack there is a meat-roasting quality, which neither resides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel of the jack, but is the result of the whole composition: so in an animal, the self-consciousness is not a real quality inherent in one being (any more than meat-roasting in a jack), but the result of several modes or qualities in the same subject. As the fly, the wheels, the chain, the weight, the cords, etc., make one jack, so the several parts of the body make one animal. As perception, or consciousness, is said to be inherent in this animal, so is meat-roasting said to be inherent in the jack. As sensation, reasoning, volition, memory, etc., are the several modes of thinking; so roasting of beef, roasting of mutton, roasting of pullets, geese, turkey, etc., are the several modes of meat-roasting. And as the general quality of meat-roasting, with its several modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets, etc., does not inhere in any one part of the jack; so neither does consciousness, with its several modes of sensation, intellection, volition, etc., inhere in any one, but is the result from the mechanical composition of the whole animal.

The parts (say they) of an animal body are perpetually

changed, and the fluids which seem to be the subject of consciousness, are in a perpetual circulation: so that the same individual particles do not remain in the brain; from whence it will follow, that the idea of individual consciousness must be constantly translated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for example, must not only be conscious, but conscious that it is the same being with the particle B that went before.

We answer, this is only a fallacy of the imagination, and is to be understood in no other sense than that maxim of the English law, that the King never dies. This power of thinking, self-moving, and governing the whole machine, is communicated from every particle to its immediate successor; who, as soon as he is gone, immediately takes upon him the government, which still preserves the unity of the whole system.

They make a great noise about this individuality: how a man is conscious to himself that he is the same individual he was twenty years ago; notwithstanding the flux state of the particles of matter that compose his body. We think this is capable of a very plain answer, and may be easily illustrated by a familiar example.

Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darned so often with silk, that they became at last a pair of silk stockings. Now suppose those stockings of Sir John's endued with some degree of consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been sensible that they were the same individual pair of stockings, both before and after the darning; and this sensation would have continued in them through all the succession of darnings; and yet after the last of all, there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stockings, but they were grown to be silk stockings as was said before.

And whereas it is affirmed, that every animal is conscious of some individual, self-moving, self-determining principle; it is answered, that, as in a House of Commons all things are determined by a majority, so it is in every animal system. As that which determines the House is said to be the reason of the whole assembly; it is no otherwise with thinking beings, who are determined by the greater force of several particles, which, like so many unthinking members, compose one thinking system.

And whereas it is likewise objected, that punishments cannot be just that are not inflicted upon the same individual, which cannot subsist without the notion of a spiritual substance: we reply, that this is no greater difficulty to conceive, than that a corporation, which is likewise a flux body, may be punished for the faults, and liable to the debts, of their predecessors.

We proceed now to explain, by the structure of the brain, the several modes of thinking. It is well known to anatomists, that the brain is a congeries of glands, that separate the finer parts of the blood, called animal spirits; that a gland is nothing but a canal of a great length, variously intorted and wound up together. From the arietation and motion of the spirits in those canals proceed all the different sorts of thoughts. Simple ideas are produced by the motion. of the spirits in one simple canal; when two of these canals disembogue themselves into one, they make what we call a proposition; and when two of these propositional canals empty themselves into a third, they form a syllogism, or a ratiocination. Memory is formed in a distinct apartment of the brain, made up of vessels similar, and like situated to the ideal, propositional, and syllogistical vessels in the primary parts of the brain. After the same manner it is easy to explain the other modes of thinking; as also why some

people think so wrong and perversely, which proceed from the bad configuration of those glands. Some, for example, are born without the propositional or syllogistical canals; in others, that reason ill, they are of unequal capacities; in dull fellows, of too great a length, whereby the motion of the spirits is retarded; in trifling geniuses, weak and small; in the over-refining spirits, too much intorted and winding; and so of the rest.

We wait with the utmost impatience for the honour of having you a member of our society, and beg leave to assure you that we are, etc.

What return Martin made to this obliging letter we must defer to another occasion.

XXX.

GEORGE BERKELEY, BISHOP OF CLOYNE.

1684-1752.

GEORGE BERKELEY, a celebrated metaphysician, born in Ireland, March 12, 1684, was the author of the 'Berkeleian Theory' of matter, which represents it as not being an external substance, but only existing in the ideas of the human mind. His style is singularly adapted to the character of his philosophy, expressing as it does the subtlest and finest philosophical ideas with the most felicitous freedom and ease, and even elegance and grace, which he combines, however, with great precision, and with a clear order and arrangement. As an exponent of philosophical thought, he is thus distinguished from former great writers in the same department; and he may be said to have created a new metaphysical style. He combined, however, with this philosophical temper an extraordinary practical enthusiasm, energy, and benevolence. In 1728, he entered upon a scheme for the foundation of a Missionary College at Bermuda, with a view to the conversion of the American Indians, and resided three years in Rhode Island for the execution of his plan, which fell to the ground from the want of Government pecuniary support. On his return to Ireland, he devoted himself to charitable and patriotic objects, and to the improvement of the condition and character of the Irish labourer. In 1733, he was made Bishop of Cloyne. He died at Oxford, in 1752.

1. That Man can see God.

It seems to be a general that they cannot see God.

pretence of the unthinking herd, Could we but see him, say they,