LETTERS TO A TRAVELLER AMONG THE ALPS. LETTER LXIII. THERE is an epidemic phrenzy, common to philosophers at all times, to doubt of what is, and to endeavour to explain what is not. This can arise only from an aim at singularity. We know from experience, that when the mind is biassed, the understanding is by no means. neutral in the search of truth. Passion puts the judgment out of its due position, and creates illusion. Hence, fairness and candour, even in metaphysical pursuits, are often forsaken. It is not aimed at to discover impartially what the truth is, but what it is desired to be. We even in general are too little disposed to suspect our A VOL .IV. own own faculties, and thus impatient and presuming, hasten too frequently to erroneous conclusions. Placed, as it were, in an intellectual twilight, where we discover but few things clearly, and none entirely, we yet just see enough to tempt us to be rash. In the course of our inquiries, we have necessarily been led to a consideration of the spiritual as well as the material part of the human frame. The subject, however, is highly worthy of still further investigation. What does not hang upon this single point! Metaphysical researches are, indeed, a good deal out of date; but they are not to be despised. They are the science of reason and intellect, as physics are those of sense and experiment. The abstract man, it is true, often plunges into darkness. But, if mounted on his imagination, and exploring those boundless regions, where there is no demonstrative ground to anchor evidence upon, and where all calculation is at fault, he should lose himself in the clouds, he is only to be considered as one impelled by an elevation of sentiment to an adventurous and glorious flight. The path I will readily acknowledge to be intricate and obscure; but it leads to immateriality. Epicurus * Epicurus insisted upon the permeability of matter. Among other arguments, he contended, that thunder or sound would not be able to pass through walls, nor fire to penetrate into iron, gold, and the other metals, unless there were some vacuous spaces in those bodies. Besides, " inasmuch as gravity is proper to bodies," says he," the weight of things could not be increased or diminished, if it were not from their being more or less porous." The followers of this philosopher outstripped their master. Absolute materiality, however, and motion, instead of spirit, was the doctrine of both. But, was death, indeed, before life? The question, Whence is the origin of motion, supposes that rest was the primitive state of matter, and that motion was produced by a subsequent act. But this supposition must surely be rejected, as it is giving precedency to the inferior, and inverting the order of nature. What life is to death; motion is to rest. Was death the first act of creation, and did life arise from death? Was death the immediate offspring of Deity, and life produced in a second generation? Or had death existence from eternity, and in time did life issue from its womb? Des Cartes says, A 2 • Lucretius. + Young. says, the soul always thinks, and that its essence consists in this actual exercise.. Had he any irrefragable testimony of this? We cannot recollect what passed within us during the period of a profound sleep, nor while we were imprisoned in the loins of our mother. Much has been said on the materiality of intelligence. But, all that can, with the utmost extravagance of imagination, be attributed to mind, is, that it is corporeal. This clearly does not affect the reality of its existence. Be it material or otherwise; be it composed or not composed of atoms; dependent or independent of the body; in whatever manner we consider it, there still exists in us something that thinks, and wills, or desires; and this something is what we call mind, or soul. We know not its internal nature; but, we plainly see its difference from the body, and that the one has nothing similar to the other. To call the soul material, is not more scientific than to call the body spiritual. If we be asked, whence arose the connection between soul and body, we can give no reply from the mere light of rea-. We cannot explain what is inexpli son. cable. cable. We cannot comprehend things unintel ligible.* Sound philosophy does not preclude us from assigning a cause that can do more than produce the effect; but it strictly prohibits us to assign one that cannot produce the effect. Mechanism has become a learned word. But, does it mean any more than that one particle of matter is impelled by another, as each resists a change of state, and that still by another, until we come to the particle first moved? And the oftener the motion is thus communicated, the first impressed quantity of it necessarily becomes the less, if it be not kept up to the first height by an extraneous power. And how stupendous doth the multiplicity of the action of the first cause appear to be, in constantly maintaining the mechanism of our bodies! If matter then cannot keep up mechanical motion in itself, can. it rise to perfection infinitely excelling both in degree and kind? Why are we to suppose all dead matter, and no living immaterial substance? It was in former days the custom to take things on trust, and to believe without suf A 3 ficient • Buffier. + Baxter. 1 |