CHAP. XII. How Martinus endeavoured to find out the feat of the foul, and of his correspondence with the freethinkers. In of M, ten meeafes of the mind, he thought nothing fo neceffary as an inquiry after the feat of the foul; in which at first he laboured under great uncertainties. Sometimes he was of opinion that it lodged in the brain, fometimes in the stomach, and some times in the heart. Afterwards he thought it abfurd to confine that fovereign lady to one apartment, which made him infer, that the fhifted it according to the feveral functions of life; The brain was her ftudy, the heart her state-room, and the ftomach her kitchen. But as he faw feveral offices of life went on at the fame time, he was forced to give up this hypothefis alfo. He now conjectured it was more for the dignity of the foul to perform feveral operations by her little ministers, the animal fpirits, from whence it was natural to conclude, that the refides in different parts according to different inclinations, fexes, ages, and profeffions. Thus in epicures he feated her in the mouth of the ftomach, philofophers have her in the brain, foldiers in their heart, women in their tougues, fidlers in their fingers, and rope-dancers in their toes. At length he grew fond of the glandula pinealis, diffecting many fubjects to find out the different figure of this gland, from whence he might difcover the caufe of the different tem D 2 pers pers in mankind. He fuppofed that in factious and reftlefs-fpirited people he fhould find it fharp and pointed, allowing no room for the foul to repose herfelf; that in quiet tempers it was flat, fmooth, and foft, affording to the foul as it were an easy cufhion. He was confirmed in this by obferving, that calves and philofophers, tygers and statefmen, foxes and fharpers, peacocks and fops, cock-fparrows and coquettes, monkeys and players, courtiers and fpaniels, moles and mifers, exactly refemble one another in the conformation of the pineal gland. He did not doubt likewife to find the fame refemblance in highwaymen and conquerors: in order to fatisfy himself in which, it was, that he purchased the body of one of the firft fpecies (as hath been before related) at Tyburn, hoping in time to have the happiness of one of the latter too, under his anatomical knife, We must not omit taking notice here, that thefe inquiries into the feat of the foul gave occa fion to his first correfpondence with the fociety of free-thinkers, who were then in their infancy in England, and fo much taken with the promising endowments of Martin, that they ordered their fecretary to write him the following letter. To the learned inquifitor into nature, MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS; The faciety of Free-thinkers, greeting, IT Grecian coffee-boufe, May 7. T is with unfpeakable joy we have heard of your inquifitive genius, and we think it great pity that it should not be better employed than in looking looking after that theological non-entity commonly called the foul; fince, after all your inquiries, it will appear you have loft your labour in feeking the refidence of fuch a chimera, that never had being but in the brains of fome dreaming philofophers. Is it not demonflration to a perfon of your fenfe, that, fince you cannot find it, there is no fuch thing? In order to fet fo hopeful a genius right in this matter, we have fent you an answer to the ill-grounded fophifms of thofe crack-brained fellows, and likewife an eafy mechanical explication of perception or thinking. One of their chief arguments is, that felf-confcioufnefs cannot inhere in any fyftem of matter, becaufe all matter is made up of feveral diftinst beings, which never can make up one individual thinking being. This is ealily anfwered by a familiar inftance. In every jack there is a meat-roating quality, which neither refides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel of the jack, but is the refult of the whole compofition: So in an animal, the self-conscioufnefs is not a real quality inherent in one being, (any more than meat-roafting in a jack), but the refuit of feveral modes or qualities in the fame fubject. As the fly, the wheels, the chain, the weight, the cords, &c. make one jack, fo the feveral parts of the body make one animal. As perception, or confcioufnefs is faid to be inherent in this animal, fo is meat-roafting faid to be inherent in the jack. As fenfation, reafoning, volition, memory, &c. are the feveral modes of thinking; fo roafting of beef, roafting of mutton, roafting of pullets, geefe, turkeys, &c. are the feveral D 3 modes modes of meat-roafting, And as the general qua, lity of meat-roailing, with its feveral modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets, &c. does not inhere in any one part of the jack; fo neither does confcioufnefs, with its several modes of fenfation, intellection, volition, &c. inhere in any one, but aş the refult from the mechanical compofition of the whole animal, Juft fo, the quality or difpofition in a fiddle to play tunes, with the feveral modifications of this tune-playing quality in playing of preludes, farabands, jigs, and gavots, are as much real qualities in the inftrument, as the thought or the imagination is in the mind of the perfon that compofes them. The parts (fay they) of an animal body are perpetually changed, and the fluids which feem to be the fubject of consciousness, are in a perpetual circulation; fo that the fame individual particles do not remain in the brain from whence it will follow, that the idea of individual confcioufnefs must be conftantly tranflated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for example muit not only be confcious, but confcious that it is the fame being that went with the particle B that went before. We anfwer, this is only a fallacy of the imagination, and is to be understood in no other fenfe than that maxim of the English law, that the king never dies. This power of thinking, felf-moving, and governing the whole machine, is communicated from every particle to its immediate fucceffor; who, as foon as he is gone, immediately takes upon him the government, which still preferves the unity of the whole fyftem. They make a great noife about this individuality; how a man is confcious to himself that he is the fame individual he was twenty years ago; notwithstanding the flux ftate of the particles of matter that compofe his body. We think this is capable of a very plain anfwer, and may be cafily illuftrated by a familiar example. Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted ftockings, which his maid darned fo often with filk, that they became at last a pair of filk stockings. Now, fuppofing thofe ftockings of Sir John's endued with fome degree of consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been fenfible, that they were the fame individual pair of stockings both before and after the darning; and this fenfation would have continued in them through. all the fucceffion of darnings; and yet, after the lalt of all, there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stockings, but they were grown to be filk flockings, as was faid before. And whereas it is affirmed, that every animal is confcious of fome individual felf-moving, felf-determining principle; it is anfwered, that as in a Houfe of Commons all things are determined by a majority, so it is in every animal fyftem. As that which determines the House is faid to be the reafon of the whole affembly, it is no otherwife with thinking beings, who are determined by the greater force of feveral particles, which, like fo many unthinking members, compofe one thinking fyftem. And whereas it is likewife objected, that punishments cannot be just that are not inflicted up on |