earliest intimations and most indestructible impressions taught him to regard as something external and separate.* ever contempt Mr. Cooper and his friends may | tain the existence of our perceptions, and to regard us, we must be permitted to say a word deny that of matter altogether. The other or two in defence of the vulgar opinion. qualities of matter are perceived by us; but The sum of the argument against the exist-perception cannot be perceived: And all we ence of mind, in case any of our readers know about it is, that it is that by which we should be ignorant of it, is shortly as follows. perceive every thing else. It certainly does The phenomena of thinking, or perception, sound somewhat absurd and unintelligible, are always found connected with a certain therefore, to say, that perception is that mass of organised matter, and have never quality of matter by which it becomes con been known to exist in a separate or detached scious of its own existence, and acquainted state. It seems natural, therefore, to consider with its other qualities: Since it is plain that them as qualities of that substance: Nor is it this is not a quality, but a knowledge of quali any objection to say, that the quality of think- ties; and that the percipient must necessarily ing has no sort of resemblance or affinity to be distinct from that which is perceived. We any of the other qualities with which we must always begin with perception; and the know matter to be endowed. This is equally followers of Berkeley will tell us, that we true of all the primary qualities of matter, must end there also. At all events, it certainly when compared with each other. Solidity, never entered into the head of any plain man for instance, bears no sort of resemblance or to conceive that the faculty of perception was affinity to extension; nor is there any other itself one of the qualities with which that reason for our considering them as qualities faculty made him acquainted: or that it could of the same substance, but that they are al-possibly belong to a substance, which his ways found in conjunction-that they occupy the same portion of space, and present themselves together, on all occasions, to our observation. Now, this may be said, with equal This, then, is the first objection to the docforce, of the quality of thinking. It is al- trine of Materialism, that it makes the ways found in conjunction with a certain mass faculty of perception a quality of the thing of solid and extended matter-it inhabits the perceived; and converts, in a way that must same portion of space, and presents itself in- at first sight appear absurd to all mankind, variably along with those other qualities the our knowledge of the qualities of matter into assemblage of which makes up our idea of another quality of the same substance. The organised matter. Whatever substratum can truth is, however, that it is a gross and unsupport and unite the qualities of solidity and warrantable abuse of language, to call percep extension, may therefore support the quality tion a quality at all. It is an act or an eventof thinking also; and it is eminently unphilo- a fact or a phenomenon-of which the percipisophical to suppose, that it inheres in a sepa-ent is conscious: but it cannot be intelligibly rate substance to which we should give the appellation of Mind. All the phenomena of thought, it is said, may be resolved by the assistance of Dr. Hartley, into perception and association. Now, perception is evidently produced by certain mechanical impulses upon the nerves, transmitted to the brain, and can therefore be directly proved to be merely a peculiar species of motion; and as sociation is something very like the vibration of musical cords in juxtaposition, and is strictly within the analogy of material movement. In answering this argument, we will fairly confess that we have no distinct idea of Substance; and that we are perfectly aware that it is impossible to combine three propositions upon the subject, without involving a contradiction. All that we know of substance are its qualities; yet qualities must belong to something-and of that something to which they belong, and by which they are united, e neither know anything nor can form any conception. We cannot help believing that it exists; but we have no distinct notion as to the mode of its existence. Admitting this, therefore, in the first place, we may perhaps be permitted to observe, that it seems a little disorderly and unphilosophical, to class perception among the qualities of matter, when it is obvious, that it is by means of perception alone that we get any notion of matter or its qualities; and that it s possible, with perfect consistency, to main conceived as a quality; and, least of all, as a quality of that substance which is known to us as solid and extended. 1st, All the qualities of matter, it has been already stated, are perceived by the senses: but the sensation itself cannot be so perceived; nor is it possible to call it an object of sense, without the grossest perversion of language. 2dly, All the qualities of matter have a direct reference to Space or extension; and are conceived, in some measure, as attributes or qualities of the space within which they exist. When we say that a particular body is solid, we mean merely that a certain portion of space is impenetrable: when we say that it is coloured, we We are not very partial to the practice of quo ting poetry in illustration of metaphysics; but the following lines seem to express so forcibly the universal and natural impression of mankind on this subject, that we cannot help offering them to the consideration of the reader. "Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood? mean that the same portion of space appears are not qualities of matter (for results and of one hue, and so of the other qualities: qualities belong not to the same category), but but sensation or thought is never conceived mere facts or phenomena of a totally different so to occupy space, or to characterise it; nor description, for the production of which the can those faculties be at all conceived as apparatus of some such organisation may, for being merely definite portions of space, en- the time, be necessary. dued with perceptible properties. In the third place, all the primary qualities of matter are inseparable from it, and enter necessarily into its conception and definition. All matter must necessarily be conceived as extended, solid, and figured: and also as universally capable of all the secondary qualities. It is obvious, however, that thought or sensation is not an inseparable attribute of matter; as by far the greater part of matter is entirely destitute of it; and it is found in connection only with those parts which we term organised; and with those, only while they are in a certain state, which we call alive. If it be said, however, that thought may resemble those accidental qualities of matter, such as heat or colour, which are not inseparable or permanent; then we reply, that neither of these things can, in strictness, be termed qualities of matter, more than thought or sensation: They are themselves substances, or matter possessed of inseparable and peculiar qualities, as well as those which address themselves to the other senses. Light is a material substance, from which the quality of colour is inseparable; and heat is a material substance, which has universally the quality of exciting the sensation of warmth: and both address themselves to, and are distinctly perceived through, our senses. If thought be allowed to be a substance in this sense, it will remain to show that it also is material; by being referable to space, capable of subsisting in every sort of body, of being perceived by the senses, of being transferred from one body to another, and liable to attraction, repulsion, condensa-posed to be any thing else? or why should tion, or reflection-like heat or light. It is to be remarked also, that wherever any proper quality, primary or secondary, can be ascribed generally to any perceptible body or mass of matter, that quality must exist and be recognised in every part of it. If the whole of any such body is hard, or coloured, or weighty, or hot, or cold, every part of it, whether merely considered and examined as separable, or actually separated and detached, must be hard, coloured, and weighty also: these qualities being truly conditions, and, in fact, the only real proofs of the material existence of such a body, and of all the parts of it. But though thought or volition may be said to have their residence somewhere within a human body, they certainly are not qualities of its material mass, in this sense; or to the effect of being sensibly present in every part or portion of it! We never, at least, have happened to hear it surmised that there is thought in the elbow-joint, or volition in the nail of the great toe: and if it be said that these phenomena are results only of the wing organisation as a whole, it seems to us that this is a substantial abandonment of the whole argument, and an admission that they But the material thing is, that it is not to the whole mass of our bodies, or their living organisation in general, that these phenomeLa are said by Dr. Priestley and his disciples to belong, as proper qualities. On the contrary, they distinctly admit that they are not qualities of that physical mass generally, nor even of those finer parts of it which constitute our organs of sense. They admit that the eye and the ear act the parts merely of optical or acoustic instruments; and are only useful in transmitting impulses (or, it may be, fine substances) to the nervous part of the brain of which alone, therefore, and indeed only of its minute and invisible portions, these singular phenomena are alleged to be proper physical qualities! It is difficult, we think, to make the absurdity of such a doctrine more apparent than by this plain statement of its import and amount. The only ground, it must always be recollected, for holding that mind and all its phenomena are mere qualities of matter, is the broad and popular one, that we always find them connected with a certain visible mass of organised matter, called a living body: But when it is admitted that they are not qualities of this mass generally, or even of any part of it which is visible or perceptible by our senses, the allegation of their being mere material qualities of a part of the brain, must appear not merely gratuitous, but inconsistent and absolutely absurd. If the eye and the ear, with their delicate structures and fine sensibility, are but vehicles and apparatus, why should the attenuated and unknown tissues of the cerebral nerves be sup the resulting sensations, to which both are apparently ministrant, and no more than min istrant, and which have no conceivable resemblance or analogy to any attribute of matter, but put on the list of the physical qualities of the latter-which is of itself too slight and subtle to enable us to say what are its com mon physical qualities? But we have yet another consideration to suggest, before finally closing this discussion. It probably has not escaped observation, that throughout the preceding argument, we have allowed the advocates for Materialism to assume that what (to oblige them) we have called thought or perception geneially, was one uniform and identical thing; to which, therefore, the appellation of a quality might possibly be given, without manifest and pal pable absurdity. But in reality there is no ground, or even room, for claiming such ar allowance. The acts or functions which we ascribe to mind, are at all events not one, but many and diverse. Perception no doubt is one of them-but it is not identical with sensation; and still less with memory or imagination, or volition,-or with love, anger, fear, deliberation, or hatred. Each of these, on the contrary, is a separate and distinguishable | sons: For, so long as they stuck to the gene act, function, or phenomenon, of the existence ral assertion, that thought might, in some way of which we become aware, not through per- or other, be represented as a quality of matception, or the external senses at all, but ter,-although it was not perceived by the through consciousness or reflection alone: and senses, and bore no analogy to any of its other none of them (with the single exception, per- qualities, and talked about the inherent cahaps, of perception) have any necessary or pacity of substance, to support all sorts of natural reference to any external or material qualities; although their doctrine might elude existence whatever. It is not disputed, how- our comprehension, and revolt all our habits ever, that it is only by perception and the of thinking, still it might be difficult to senses, that we can gain any knowledge of demonstrate its fallacy; and a certain permatter; and, consequently, whatever we come plexing argumentation might be maintained, to know by consciousness only, cannot pos- by a person well acquainted with the use, sibly belong to that category, or be either ma- and abuse, of words: But when they cast terial or external. But we are not aware that away the protection of this most convenient any materialist has ever gone the length of obscurity, and, instead of saying that they directly maintaining that volition for example, do not know what thought is, have the cour or memory, or anger, or fear, or any other age to refer it to the known category of Mosuch affection, were proper material qualities tion, they evidently subject their theory to the of our bodily frames, or could be perceived test of rational examination, and furnish us and recognised as such, by the agency of with a criterion by which its truth may be the external senses; in the same way as the easily determined. weight, heat, colour, or elasticity which may belong to these frames. But if they are not each of them capable of being so perceived, as separate physical qualities, it is plain that nothing can be gained in argument, by affecting to disregard their palpable diversity, and seeking to class them all under one vague name, of thought or perception. Even with that advantage, we have seen that the doctrine, of perception or thought being a mere quality of matter, is not only untenable, but truly self-contradictory and unintelligible. But when the number and diversity of the phenomena necessarily covered by that general appellation is considered, along with the fact that most of them have no reference to matter, and do in no way imply its existence, the absurdity of representing them as so many of its distinct perceptible qualities, must be too apparent, we think, to admit of any serious defence. The sum of the whole then is, that all the knowledge which we gain only by Perception and the use of our external Senses, is knowledge of Matter, and its qualities and attributes alone; and all which we gain only by Consciousness and Reflection on our own inward feelings, is necessarily knowledge of Mind, and its states, attributes, and functions. This in fact is the whole basis, and rationale f the distinction between mind and matter: and, consequently, unless it can be shown that love, anger, and sorrow, as well as memory and volition, are direct objects of sense or external perception, like heat and colour, or figure and solidity, there must be an end, we think, of all question as to their being material qualities. But, though the very basis and foundation of the argument for Materialism is placed upon the assumption, that thought and perception are qualities of our bodies, it is remarkable that Dr. Priestley, and the other champions of that doctrine, do ultimately give up that point altogether, and maintain, that thought is nothing else than Mction! Now, this, we cannot help thinking, was very impolitic and injudicious in these learned per We shall not be so rash as to attempt any definition of motion; but we believe we may take it for granted, that our readers know pretty well what it is. At all events, it is not a quality of matter. It is an act, a phenomenon, or a fact:-but it makes no part of the description or conception of matter; though it can only exist with reference to that substance. Let any man ask himself, however, whether the motion of matter bears any sort of resemblance to thought or sensation; or whether it be even conceivable that these should be one and the same thing?-But, it is said, we find sensation always produced by motion; and as we can discover nothing else in conjunction with it, we are justified in ascribing it to motion. But this, we beg leave to say, is not the question. It is not necessary to inquire, whether motion may produce sensation or not, but whether sensation be motion, and nothing else? It seems pretty evi dent, to be sure, that motion can never produce any thing but motion or impulse; and that it is at least as inconceivable that it should ever produce sensation in matter, as that it should produce a separate substance, called mind. But this, we repeat, is not the question with the materialists. Their proposition is, not that motion produces sensation—which might be as well in the mind as in the body; but, that sensation is motion; and that all the phenomena of thought and perception are intelligibly accounted for by saying, that they are certain little shakings in the pulpy part of the brain. There are certain propos.tions which it is difficult to confute, only because it is impossible to comprehend them: and this, the substantive article in the creed of Materialism, really seems to be of this description. To say that thought is motion, is as unintelligible to us, as to say that it is space, or time, or proportion. There may be little shakings in the brain, for any thing we know, and there may even be shakings of a different kind, accompanying every act of thought or perception ;-but, that the shakings themselves are the thought or Berkeleians, it seems quite enough to deter mine us to reject it, that it confounds the ac of perception with the qualities perceived, and classes among the objects of perception, the faculty by which these objects are introduced to our knowledge, and which faculty must be exercised, before we can attain to any cru ception, either of matter or its qualities. perception, we are so far from admitting, that we find it absolutely impossible to comprehend what is meant by the assertion. The shakings are certain throbbings, vibrations, or stirrings, in a whitish, half-fluid substance like custard, which we might see perhaps, or feel, if we had eyes and fingers sufficiently small or fine for the office. But what should we see or feel, upon the supposition that we We do not pretend to have looked through could detect, by our senses, every thing that the whole controversy which Dr. Priestley's actually took place in the brain? We should publications on this subject appears to have see the particles of this substance change their excited: But nothing certainly has struck us place a little, move a little up or down, to the with more astonishment, than the zeal with right or to the left, round about, or zig-zag, or which he maintains that this doctrine, and in some other course or direction. This is that of Necessity, taken together, afford the all that we could see, if Hartley's conjecture greatest support to the cause of religion and were proved by actual observation; because morality! We are a little puzzled, indeed. to this is all that exists in motion,-according to discover what use, or what room, there can be our conception of it; and all that we mean, for a God at all, upon this hypothesis of Mawhen we say that there is motion in any sub- terialism; as well as to imagine what species stance. Is it intelligible, then, to say, that of being the God of the materialist must be. this motion, the whole of which we see and If the mere organisation of matter produces comprehend, is thought and feeling?-and reason, memory, imagination, and all the that thought and feeling will exist wherever other attributes of mind,—and if these differwe can excite a similar motion in a similar ent phenomena be the necessary result of cer substance?-In our humble apprehension, the tain motions impressed upon matter; then proposition is not so much false, as utterly there is no need for any other reason or enunmeaning and incomprehensible. That sen-ergy in the universe: and things may be adsation may follow motion in the brain, or may ministered very comfortably, by the intellect even be produced by it, is conceivable at spontaneously evolved in the different combileast, and may be affirmed with perfect pre-nations of matter. But if Dr. Priestley will cision and consistency; but that the motion is itself sensation, and that the proper and complete definition of thought and feeling is, that they are certain vibrations in the brain, is a doctrine, we think, that can only be wondered at, and that must be comprehended before it be answered. No advocate for the existence of mind, ever thought it necessary to deny that there was a certain bodily apparatus necessary to thought and sensation in man-and that, on many occasions, the sensation was preceded or introduced by certain impulses and corresponding movements of this material machinery:-we cannot see without eyes and light, nor think without living bodies. All that they maintain is, that these impulses and movements are not feelings or thought, but merely the occasions of feeling and thought; and that it is impossible for them to confound the material motions which precede those sensations, with the sensations themselves, which have no conceivable affinity with matter. The theory of Materialism, then, appears to us to be altogether unintelligible and absurd; and, without recurring to the reasoning of the have a superfluous Deity notwithstanding, we may ask what sort of a Deity he can expect? He denies the existence of mind or spirit altogether; so that his Deity must be material; and his wisdom, power, and goodness must be the necessary result of a certain organisa. tion. But how can a material deity be im mortal? How could he have been formed? Or why should there not be more,-formed by himself, or by his creator? We will not affirm that Dr. Priestley has not attempted to answer these questions; but we will take it upon us to say, that he cannot have answered them in a satisfactory manner. As to his paradoxical doctrines, with regard to the natural mortality of man, and the incompre hensible gift of immortality conferred on a material structure which visibly moulders and is dissolved, we shall only say that it exceeds in absurdity any of the dogmas of the Catholics; and can only be exceeded by his own supposition, that our Saviour, being only a man, and yet destined to live to the day of judgment, is still alive in his original human body upon earth, and is really the Wandering Jew of vulgar superstition! (October, 1805.) Academical Questions. By the Right Honourable WILLIAM DRUMMOND, K. C., F. R. S., F. R. S. E Author of a Translation of Persius. Vol. I. 4to. pp. 412. Cadell and Davies. London: 1805 We do not know very well what to say of that it is occupied with Metaphysical specu this very learned publication. To some read-lations. To others, it may convey a more ers it will probably be enough to announce, precise idea of its character, to be told, that though it gave violent headache, in less than | cipitately, that secondary qualities are unian hour, to the most intrepid logician of our versally admitted to have no existence but in fraternity, he could not help reading on till he the mind of him who perceives them, proceeds, came to the end of the volume.* with an air of triumph that is at all events premature, to demonstrate, that there is nothing in the case of primary qualities by which they can be distinguished in this respect from the secondary. The fact unquestionably is, that Dr. Reid and his followers assert the posi tive and independent existence of secondary, as well as of primary qualities in matter; and that there is, upon their hypothesis, exactly the same evidence for the one as for the other. The general problem, as to the probable existence of matter-unquestionably the most fundamental and momentous in the whole science of metaphysics-may be fairly and intelligibly stated in a very few words. Mr. Drummond begins with the doctrine of Locke; and exposes, we think, very successfully, the futility of that celebrated author's definition of Substance, as "one knows not what" support of such qualities as are capable of producing simple ideas in us. This notion of substance he then shows to be derived from the old Platonic doctrine of the primary matter, or van, to which the same objections are applicable. Having thus discarded Substance in general from the list of existences, Mr. Drummond proceeds to do as much for the particular substance called Matter, and all its qualities. In this chapter, accordingly, he avows himself to be a determined Idealist; and it is the scope of his whole argument to prove, that what we call qualities in external substances, are in fact nothing more than sensations in our own minds; and that what have been termed primary qualities, are in this respect entirely upon a footing with those which are called secondary. His reasoning upon this subject coincides very nearly with that of Bishop Berkeley; of whom, indeed, he says, that if his arguments be not really conclusive, it is certainly to be lamented that they should have been so imperfectly answered. To us, we will confess, it does not seem of very great consequence to determine whether there be any room for a distinction between the primary and secondary qualities of matter; for though we are rather inclined to hold that Dr. Reid's observations have established its possibility, we cannot help saying, that it is a distinction which does not touch at all upon the fundamental question, as to the evidence which we have, by our senses, for the existence of a material world. Dr. Reid and his followers contend as strenuously for the real existence of those material qualities which produce in us the sensations of heat, or of colour, as of those which give us intimations of solidity, figure, or extension. We know a little more, indeed, according to them, about the one sort of qualities than the other; but the evidence we have for their existence is exactly the same in both cases; nor is it more a law of our nature, that the sensation of resistance should suggest to us the definable quality of solidity in an external object, than that the sensation of heat should suggest to us, that quality in an external object, which we cannot define otherwise than as the external cause of this sensation. Mr. Drummond, we think, has not attended sufficiently to this part of his antagonist's position; and after assuming, somewhat too pre Bishop Berkeley, and after him Mr. Drummond, have observed, that by our senses, we can have nothing but sensations; and that sensations, being affections of mind, cannot possibly bear any resemblance to matter, or any of its qualities; and hence they infer, that we cannot possibly have any evidence for the existence of matter; and that what we term our perception of its qualities, is in fact nothing else than a sensation in our own minds. Dr. Reid, on the other hand, distinctly admit ting that the primary functions of our senses is to make us conscious of certain sensations, which can have no sort of resemblance or affinity to the qualities of matter, has asserted it as a fact admitting of no dispute, but recog nised by every human creature, that these sensations necessarily suggest to us the notion of certain external existences, endowed with particular definable qualities; and that these perceptions, by which our sensations are accompanied, are easily and clearly distinguishable from the sensations themselves, and cannot be confounded with them, without the most wilful perversity. Perception, again, he holds, necessarily implies the existence of the object perceived; and the reality of a material world is thus as clearly deduced from the exercise of this faculty, as the reality of our own existence can be from our consciousness, or other sensations. It appears, therefore, that there are two questions to be considered in determining on the merits of this controversy. First, whether there be any room for a distinction between sensation and percep tion; and, secondly, if we shall allow such a distinction, whether perception does necessarily imply the real and external existence of the objects perceived. If by perception, indeed, we understand, as Dr. Reid appears to have done, the immediate and positive discovery of external existences, it is evident that the mere assumption of this faculty puts an end to the whole question; since it necessarily takes those existences for For the reasons stated in the note prefixed to granted, and, upon that hypothesis, defines this division of the book, I refrain from reprinting the faculty in question to be that by which the greater part of this review; and give only that we discover their qualities. This, however, part of it which is connected with the speculations it is plain, is not reasoning, but assertion; and in the preceding articles, and bears upon the ques- it is not the mere assertion of a fact, which tion of the existence of an external world, and the faith to be given to the intimations of our senses, in these subjects is the whole perhaps of our and other internal convictions. legitimate philosophy, but of something which |