618 PRIESTLEY'S ASSERTION THAT THOUGHT IS MOTION! very impolitic and injudicious in these learned persons: For, so long as they stuck to the general assertion, that thought might, in some way or other, be represented as a quality of matter,—although it was not perceived by the senses, and bore no analogy to any of its other qualities, — and talked about the inherent capacity of substance, to support all sorts of qualities; although their doctrine might elude our comprehension, and revolt all our habits of thinking, still it might be difficult to demonstrate its fallacy; and a certain perplexing argumentation might be maintained, by a person well acquainted with the use, and abuse, of words: But when they cast away the protection of this most convenient obscurity, and, instead of saying that they do not know what thought is, have the courage to refer it to the known category of Motion, they evidently subject their theory to the test of rational examination, and furnish us with a criterion by which its truth may be easily determined. 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 evident, to be sure, that motion can never produce anything 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, ABSURDITY TO CALL THOUGHT MOTION. 619 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 propositions 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 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 could detect, by our senses, every thing that actually took place in the brain? We should see the particles of this substance change their place a little, move a little up or down, to the right or left, round about, or zig-zag, or in some other course or direction. This is all that we could see, if Hartley's conjecture were proved by actual observation; because this is all that exists in motion,— according to our conception of it; and all that we mean, when we say that there is motion in any substance. Is it intelligible, then, to say, that this motion, the whole of which we see and comprehend, is thought and feeling? -and that thought or feeling will exist wherever we can excite a similar motion in a similar substance?- In our humble apprehension, the proposition is not so much false, as utterly unmeaning and incomprehensible. That 620 MATERIALISM SUPERSEDES DEITY. sensation may follow motion in the brain, or may even be produced by it, is conceivable at least, and may be affirmed with perfect precision 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 Berkeleians, it seems quite enough to determine us to reject it, that it confounds the act 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 conception, either of matter or its qualities. We do not pretend to have looked through the whole controversy which Dr. Priestley's publications on this subject appears to have excited: But nothing certainly has struck us with more astonishment, than the zeal with which he maintains that this doctrine, and that of Necessity, taken together, afford the greatest support to the cause of religion and morality! We are a little puzzled, indeed, to discover what use, or what room, there can be for a God at all, upon this hypothesis of Materialism; as well as to imagine what species of being PRIESTLEY'S THEOLOGICAL FANCIES. 621 If the mere orga the God of the materialist must be. nisation of matter produces reason, memory, imagination, and all the other attributes of mind, and if these different phenomena be the necessary result of certain motions impressed upon matter; then there is no need for any other reason or energy in the universe: and things may be administered very comfortably, by the intellect spontaneously evolved in the different combinations of matter. But if Dr. Priestley will 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 organisation. But how can a material Deity be immortal? 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 incomprehensible 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. 622 DRUMMOND'S ACADEMICAL QUESTIONS. (OCTOBER, 1805.) Academical Questions. By the Right Honourable WILLIAM Author of a Trans- We do not know very well what to say of this very learned publication, To some readers it will probably be enough to announce, that it is occupied with Metaphysical speculations. To others, it may convey a more precise idea of its character, to be told, that though it gave a violent headache, in less than an hour, to the most intrepid logician of our fraternity, he could not help reading on till he came to the end of the volume.* 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 in, 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 *For the reasons stated in the note prefixed to this division of the book, I refrain from reprinting the greater part of this review; and give only that part of it which is connected with the speculations in the preceding articles, and bears upon the question of the existence of an external world, and the faith to be given to the intimations of our senses, and other internal convictions. |