of Jesus, they presumed to ask him, 'Lord, wilt thou, at this time, restore again the kingdom of Israel?"*

"But I say, yet more generally, that neither the Jews, nor any other human beings, could possibly have had a conception of such a personage and such a character as Jesus Christ, as he appears throughout the several gospels; nor could they have drawn or collected it, except from the reality presented to their observation. The illustration of this important truth, in various points of view, will form the chief subject of these remarks; which, if they convey to any other minds the conviction impressed by them upon that of the Author, cannot fail to be of considerable use.

Acts i. 6.

V.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN NATURE.

The Nature of Man as Spiritual, Immortal, and Responsible, will be the most frequent topic of this department: though sometimes we shall introduce MISCELLANEOUS Subjects.

MIND AND MATTER: THEIR EVIDENCES AND
DISTINCTIONS.

(Continued from page 431.)

I SHALL take notice but of one thing more, and that is,* Mr. Gildon's attempt to prove the materiality of the soul; his arguments are as unlikely to prove it, as most I have seen: but I shall shew the notion to be absurd in itself, and impossible to be maintained.

The essence of all matter must be the same, whether extension, or any thing else, be assigned as the essence of it; and though we may be ignorant of the essence of matter, yet we know it cannot be essential to it to think: for then all matter would necessarily think. But the difference in the several sorts of matter can be only in accidents, that is, in bulk, rest, motion, situation, and figure, none of which can render matter capable of thought. For if a different bulk of matter could produce thought in it, and the subtile matter should be able to think and reason, though the gross cannot; then the parts of a stone would think, when it is ground to dust; though when they are joined and compacted together, they make up a body, as unlikely to think, as any thing we can imagine. If rest could cause matter to think, a stone would be the most thinking creature in the world. If motion could cause it, than that which moves with most quickness, would think most, as fire, and the sun, and stars: but motion is only a successive change of place, and there is no reason why matter should think in one place, rather than in another; or why it should think, when it is moved in a right line, or in a circle, or in any curve line, rather than when it lies still. Again, there is no reason why matter should be able to think, or not think, according to its situation or position; why it should think in the brain, rather than upon the trencher; or when it is digested, and reduced to animal spirits, rather than when it is in a more compacted substance, and has a different relation to the parts of matter about it. Lastly, if any sort of figure could produce thought, stones must certainly think, as well as the best of us; and so, indeed, might anything else for what body is there that they may not subsist under all varieties of figure?

any

of

Neither can any lucky conjuncture of all these together produce a power and faculty of thinking. For, imagine what bulk, rest or motion, situation and figure you can, to meet together, they are all alike uncapable of so much as one thought; since there is nothing in the nature of these accidents or modifications of matter, but it is as far from any power of thinking, as matter itself is; and therefore thinking can no more arise from a combination of them together, than it can proceed from the amassing together of matter. All the accidents, but motion, have nothing active or operative in them, but are only matter under different modes and relations. And motion, whatever the figure, or bulk and contexture of any body may be, can be but motion still; and suppose what contexture or modifications you will; what is motion, under all determinations, collisions and combinations, but change of place? And, how can change of place produce thinking, under any variety of contexture in the particles of matter? Free-will is impossible to be accounted for by matter or motion, as Epicurus found, who was therefore forced to have recourse to his declinationes atomorum; for which he is so justly exposed by Tully. For neither can matter determine its own motion, nor can motion determine itself, but must be determined by something external; whereas all men find it in their power to determine themselves by an inward and voluntary principle.

It is true, indeed, that the soul, in its operations, depends very much upon the temperament of the body: yet the soul, even in this state, has thoughts, which have no relation to the body, or any material thing; as thoughts of God and spirits, its own reflex thoughts, or consciousness of its own operations. And if it were now capable of no thoughts, but such as have some dependence upon the body; yet this can never prove that the soul itself is material, or that matter thinks. A man writes with his pen, and cannot write without one; is it therefore his pen properly that writes, and not the man? The body is the instrument of the soul, in its operations here; and as the instrument is fit or unfit, so much its operations be more or less perfect.

But it is strange, that the chief part of us should be of such a nature, that we can form no idea of it. We may form an idea of it, though but an imperfect one: and do we not know, that the eye, the noblest part of the body, cannot see itself, but imperfectly, and by reflection? And let any man try, whether he can form a better idea of a material soul, than of an immaterial one. But this writer, by idea seems to mean a material idea, or imagination; and we cannot, indeed, form a material idea of an immaterial spirit. Yet, after all which he, or any man else, has said, the nature of the soul is as clearly understood, as that of the body and there is nothing encumbered with greater difficulties than extension, if that be the essence of matter; and if that be not, it is as hard still to know what the essence of matter is. The instance which he brings of brutes, is easily answered, whether they can think, or not. If they cannot, the objection falls of itself: if they can, I should rather suppose, that their souls may be annihilated, or may transmigrate and pass from one brute to another, than that the souls of men must be material, that the souls of brutes may be material too.

Another gentleman, of late, has asserted, that it is impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether omnipotency hath not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive or think; and that there is a possibility that God may, if he pleases, super-add to matter a faculty of thinking; which is what he likewise calls à modification of thinking, or power of thinking. But it seems not intelligible, how God should super-add to matter this faculty, or power, or modification of thinking, unless he change the nature of matter, and make it to be quite another thing than it is, or join a substance of another nature to it. But the question is whether a faculty of thinking can be produced out of the powers and various modifications of matter? And we can have no more conception, how any modification of matter can produce thinking, than we can, how any modification of sound should produce seeing: all modifications of matter are the same, as to this point; and matter may as well be made no matter by modifying, as be made to think by it. This is just as if a man should maintain, that though all immaterial substances are not extended and divisible, yet some of them may possibly be, or omnipotence may super-add to them a faculty of extension and divisibility: for immaterial substances may become divisible and material by the same philosophy, by which we may conclude, that matter may think; which is the same thing as to become immaterial, and to surpass all the powers and capacities of matter. Het urges, that there may be capacities in matter, which no man can conceive, since that gravitating power, which Sir Isaac Newton has proved to belong to all bodies, would before have been thought incredible. But there is nothing in this power above the nature of matter, any more than there is in motion. For gravitation is only a determinate mode of motion: and it is very easy to conceive, that matter is as well capable of one determination of motion, as of another; since matter is herein only passive, and not active, or enabled to move voluntarily, and determine itself, as human souls do. That which is capable of any one determination of motion, may be capable of all kinds of determination; but that which may be determined always, may not be capable of determining itself any one way. Matter must ever remain incapable of thinking, unless it could change its nature, and become immaterial, and then it would not be matter, which would think, but something else. And it is of little use or consequence to enquire, what omnipotence can do by a super-addition of faculties to matter; when between those, who prove the soul to be immaterial, and such as suppose it to be material, the only question in dispute is, not what a divine power can effect, (for these men are unwilling to grant any such power presiding over matter) but whether a faculty of thinking can be produced out of matter, by any modifications, or changes and determinations of motion. [We intend occasionally presenting our readers, with such parts of certain authors as may be buried amongst by-gone questions, composing the greater part of their works; and also to introduce to their Mr. Lock's "Humane Understanding," 1. 4. c. 3. §. 6. Letter to the Bishop of Worcester, p. 66,

+ Reply to the Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter, p. 404, &c.

notice, such extracts from scarce and voluminous authors, as are not likely to meet the eye of the many. The above, on Mind and Matter, is from a work entitled "the Reasonableness and Certainty of the Christian Religion." By Robert Jenkin, D.D. 1715. EDITOR.]

THE VISION.

One evening lately, I was sitting at an advanced hour in my study, revolving the pages of Dante's Inferno. My mind was agitated by many harassing circumstances, magnified and distorted by an overwrought imagination. Yet instead of seeking to calm this perturbation by the charm of soothing words, such as are to be found in the poems of Cowper, or Campbell, or Rogers. I felt urged by an unnatural impulse to satiate my thoughts, as it were, with what is terrible and overwhelming, by plunging into the strange horrors of that revelation of vengeance and woe. Dante describes himself as being guided by virgil through the portals of hell, and conducted from one region of punishment to another, each region being appropriated to some particular crime, which is there visited with its own peculiar sufferings. As my eye passed along the lines; I accompanied them in thought through each gradation of guilt and misery, and carried away by the vivid delineations of torment, seemed almost to watch with them the writhing of the victims, and to hear the low sounds of despair in which they told of the various steps by which their sin had been consummated. Then I turned to the portrait of him who had conceived the whole, and gazing on the deep furrows of his careworn countenance, and the marks of stern grief which long and unmerited exile had stamped upon his brow, I mused upon what is probably his own fate now, in the invisible world to which he has departed. "Is he now," said I to myself, an eternal inhabitant of those scenes of darkness and anguish through which he once travelled in imagination? What reason have we to suppose that he is not, if none but those who have the spirit of Christ can dwell with Christ for ever? And how many of earth's noblest minds bear him company in those dreary abodes! Surely all the might, majesty, genius, and beauty of earth, have gone. down to the pit of perdition, and hell hath grown rich on the spoils of our ruined world. Were the rolls of fame rehearsed, and each name recorded therein responded to by him that bore it, to how many would an answer be returned by voices from beneath! My heart shuddered—I paused, and looked up. With a start, I perceived a stranger seated upon the edge of the bed, motionless, with his eyes fixed upon me with a mournful expression. He was dressed in a long dark gown that fitted close to his tall and emaciated form, the outlines of his hollow cheeks were marked by what seemed to be the dried-up channels of long-forgotten tears; a withered chaplet was twined round his ample forehead. Who art thou?" I exclaimed with difficulty. "I, student, am the Florentine exile, Dante Alighieri, once the visitor, now the denizen of no imaginary hell: rise, and follow me.' He laid his hand upon my wrist -its touch was heavy and cold; I stood up as one bewildered, who moves without will or thought. His grasp grew firmer, and locked my

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