man thinks eternally, and that the foul, at its coming into the body, is inform'd with the whole series of metaphyfical notions; knowing God, infinite space, poffeffing all abtract ideas; in a word, completely endued with the moft fublime lights, which it unhappily forgets at its iffuing from the womb.

FATHER Malebranche, in his fublime illufions, not only admitted innate ideas, but did not doubt of our living wholly in God, and that God is, as it were, our foul.

SUCH a multitude of reafoners having written the romance of the foul, a fage at laft arofe, who gave, with an air of the greatest modefty, the hiftory of it. Mr. Locke has difplay'd the human foul, in the fame manner as an excellent anatomist explains the springs of the human body. He every where takes the light of phyficks for his guide. He fometimes prefumes to speak affirmatively, but then he prefumes also to doubt. Instead of concluding at once what we know not, he examines gradually what we wou'd know. He takes an infant at the inftant of his birth; he traces, ftep by step, the progrefs of his understanding; examines what things he has in common with beafts, and what he poffeffes above them. Above all he confults himself; the being conscious that he himself thinks.

I

FSHALL leave, fays he, to thofe who know more of this matter than myself, the examining whether the foul exifts before or after the organization of our bodies. But I confefs, that 'tis my lot to be animated with one of those heavy fouls which do not think always; and I am even fo unhappy as not to conceive, that 'tis more neceffary the Soul fhould think perpetually, than that bodies fhould be for ever in motion.

WITH regard to myfelf, I fhall boast, that I have the honour to be as stupid in this particular as Mr. Locke. No one shall ever make me believe, that I think always; and I am as little inclin'd as he could be, to fancy that fome weeks after I was conceiv'd, I was a very learned Soul; knowing at that time a thousand things which I forgot at my birth; and poffeffing when in the womb, (tho' to no manner of purpose) Knowledge which I loft the inftant I had occafion for it; and which I have never fince been able to recover perfectly.

MR. LOCKE after having destroy'd innate ideas; after having fully renounc'd the vanity of believing that we think always; after having laid down, from the moft folid principles, that ideas enter the mind through the fenfes; having examined our fimple and complex ideas; having trac'd the human mind through its feveral E5 ope

operations; having fhew'd that all the languages in the world are imperfect, and the great abuse that is made of words every moment; he at last comes to confider the extent, or rather the narrow limits of human knowledge. 'Twas in this chapter he prefum'd to advance, but very modeftly, the following words, "We fhall,

perhaps, never be capable of knowing, "whether a being, purely material, "thinks or not." This fage affertion was, by more divines than one, looked upon as a fcandalous declaration that the Soul is material and mortal. Some Engbifhmen, devout after their way, founded an alarm. The fuperftitious are the fame in fociety as cowards in an army; they thèmfelves are feiz'd with a panic fear, and communicate it to others. loudly exclaim'd, that Mr. Locke intend-. ed to deftroy religion; nevertheless religion had nothing to do in the affair; it being a question purely philofophical, altogether independent of faith and revela

tion.

'Twas

Mr. Locke's opponents needed but to examine, calmly and impartially, whether the declaring that matter can think, implies a contradiction; and whether God is able to communicate thought to matter. But divines are too apt to begin their declarations with faying, that God is offended when people differ from them in

opinion;

opinion; in which they too much refemble the bad poets, who us'd to declare publickly that Boileau fpake irreverently of Lewis the fourteenth, because he ridicul'd their stupid productions. Bishop Stillingfleet got the reputation of a calm and unprejudic'd divine, because he did not exprefsly make use of injurious terms in his difpute with Mr. Locke. That divine entered the lifts against him, but was defeated; for he argued as a schoolman, and Locke as a philofopher, who was perfectly acquainted with the ftrong as well as the weak fide of the human mind, and who fought with weapons whose temper he knew. If I might prefume to give my opinion on fo delicate a fubject after Mr. Locke, I would fay, that men have long difputed on the nature and the immortality of the Soul. With regard to its immortality, it is impoffible to give a demonftration of it, fince its nature is ftill the subject of controverfy; which however must be thoroughly understood, before a perfon can be able to determine whether it be immortal or not. Human reason is fo little able, merely by its own ftrength, to demonstrate the immortality of the foul, that it was abfolutely neceffary religion fhould reveal it to us. It is of advantage to fociety in general, that mankind. fhould believe the Soul to be immortal; E 6 Faith

Faith commands us to this; nothing more is requir'd, and the matter is clear'd up at once.. But it is otherwife with refpect to its nature; it is of little importance to religion, which only requires the Soul to be virtuous, what substance it may be made of. It is a clock which is given us to regulate, but the artist has not told us of what maserials the fpring of this clock is compos'd.

I am a body, and, I think, that is all I know of the matter. Shall I afcribe to an unknown caufe, what I can fo eafily impute to the only fecond cause I am acquainted with? Here all the school philofophers interrupt me with their arguments, and declare that there is only extenfion and folidity in bodies, and that there they can have nothing but motion and figure. Now motion, figure, extenfion and folidity cannot form a thought, and confequently the Soul cannot be matter. All this, fo often repeated, mighty feries of reasoning amounts to no more than this; I am abfolutely ignorant what matter is; I guefs, but imperfectly, fome properties of it; now I abfolutely cannot tell whether thefe properties may be joined to thought. As I therefore know nothing, I maintain pofitively that matter cannot think. In this manner do the fchools reafon.

MR. Locke addrefs'd thefe gentlemen in the candid, fincere manner following. At

leaft