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mankind believe in both, and of course believe in a well founded distinction between them.

That such is the belief of men generally, as clearly evinced by the structure of languages and in various other ways, will not probably be denied. It is a matter too evident to permit us to anticipate a denial. When therefore, we take into view that there are grounds of belief fixed deeply and originally in our constitution, and that, in their general operation, they must be expected to lead to truth, and not to error, we are unable to harbour the opposition, that men are deceived and led astray in this opinion ; that they so generally and almost universally believe in the existence of what in point of fact does not exist.

§. 32 Their different nature evinced by their respective

properties. Again, the distinction between mind and matter is shown by the difference in the qualities and properties, which men agree in ascribing to them respectively. The properties of matter are extension, hardness, figure, solidity, and the like. The properties of mind are thought, feeling, volition, reasoning, the passions. The phenomena, exhibited by matter and mind, are not only different in their own naure, but are addressed to different parts of our constitution. We obtain a knowledge of material properties, so far as it is direct and immediate, by means of the senses ; but all our direct knowledge of the nature of the mental phenomena is acquired by consciousness.

Every one knows that the phenomena in question are not identical. There is no sameness or similitude, for instance, in what we express by the terms hardness and desire, solidity and hatred, imagination and extension. Holding it to be unphilosophical to ascribe attributes so different to the same subject, we conclude the subjects of them are not the same. And accordingly we call the subjects of one class of phenomena Mind, and that of the other Matter. But there is one of the properties of matter, which,

considered as applicable to mind, is worthy of a more particular examination. $. 33. The material quality of divisibility not existing in

the mind.

That there is an essential and perinanent distinction between mind and matter, seems to follow in particular from an examination of that particular quality, expressed by the word, divisibility. All matter is divisible.

. However small we may imagine any particle to be, we must still suppose it to have a top and bottom, a right and left side ; and therefore, to admit of being divided into different parts. All extension, which is acknowledged to be one of the primary qualities of matter, implies divisibility.

Now if divisibility and extension be not ascribed to the mind, all, that is contended for, is virtually conceded. But if, on the other hand, either or both of these qualities, for they reciprocally involve each other, belong to the mind, then the following difficulty arises.—If the mind itself be susceptible of division, as all matter is, then still more its thoughts and feelings may be thus divided. But this is contrary to all our consciousness; and consciousness is the only means or instrument, which we can directly employ in obtaining a knowledge of the mind. No man is ever conscious of a half, or a quarter, or a third of a hope, joy, sorrow, remembrance, or volition. In deed if the soul were separable into parts, one part might be filled with joy, and another with sorrow at the same time; one part might be occupied with a mathematical demonstration, and another in framing a poem or a romance.

We may possess, at different times, different mental states both in kind and degree ; but, however our feelings, when occuring at successive and different periods, may differ from each other in these respects, our consciousness never fails to ascribe to them individually an unity or oneness. And the unity, which we ascribe to the attributes or acts of the mind, still more we ascribe to the mind

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itself. It is the whole soul, and not a moiety or fraction of it, which is the subject of its various feelings.

§. 34. Opinions of Buffier on the soul's indivisibility.

The sentiments of Buffier on this topic are so well expressed, and come from a writer of so much wisdom, thatthey seem to be suitably inserted in this place.—“I cannot, he says, without a degree of folly imagine, that my being or what I call me can be divided; for, were it possible that this me could be divided in two, it would then be me and not me at the same time it would be so, as it is supposed; and would not be so, since each of the two parties must then become independent of the other might think, and the other not; that is to say, I might think and not think at the same time; which destroys every idea of me and of myself.

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"Besides, this me, and all other beings similar to this me, in whom unity is necessarily conceived, and where I cannot suppose any division without destroying their very essence, and every idea I can entertain of them, is what I call an immaterial or spiritual being; so that, by destroying its unity, you destroy its entire essence, and every idea of its existence. Divide a thought, a soul, or a mind in two, and you have no longer either thought, soul, mind? This indivisibility is, moreover, evident to me by the interior sense of what I am; and, by the efficacy of the same sentiment, I likewise learn that what I call me is not properly what I call my body, as this body may be divided both from me, and in itself; whereas, with regard to me, I cannot be divided from myself."

§. 35. The soul's immateriality indicated by the feeling of identity.

There is another somewhat striking consideration, which may aid in evincing the immateriality of the soul. It is well known that the materials, of which the human body is composed, is constantly changing. The whole bodily system repeatedly undergoes in the course of the ordinary term of man's life, a complete renovation, and

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yet we possess, during the whole of this period and amid these utter changes of the bodily part, a conciousness of the permanency, as well as of the unity of the mind. “ This fact, remarks Mr. Stewart, is 'surely not a little favourable to the supposition of mind being a principle essentially distinct from matter, and capable of existing when its connection with the body is dissolved.

Truly if the soul, like the body, were made up of particles of matter, and the particles were in this case as in the other, always changing, we should be continually roving, as an old writer expresses it, and sliding away from ourselves, and should soon forget what we once were. The new soul, that entered into the same place, would not necessarily enter into the possession of the feelings, consciousness, and knowledge of that, which had gone. And

. hence we rightly infer, from an identity in these respects, the identity or continued existence of the subject, to which such feelings, consciousness, and knowledge belong. And as there is not alike identity or continued existence of the material part, we may infer again, that the soul is distinct from matter.

f. 36. The material doctrine makes man an automaton or

machine.

The doctrine, that thought is the result of material organization, and that the soul is not distinct from the body, is liable also to this no small objection, that it makes the soul truly and literally a machine. If what we term mind be in truth matter, it is of course under the same influ.

But matter, in all its movements and combinations, is known to be subject to a strict and inflexible direction, the origin of which is exteriour to itself. The material universe is truly an automaton, experiencing through all time the same series of motions, in obedience to some high and authoritative intelligence; and is so entirely subject to fixed laws, that we can express in mathematical formulas not only the state of large bodies, but of a drop of water or of a ray of light ; estimating minutely extension and quantity, force, velocity, and resistance.

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It is not thus with the human mind. That the mind has its laws is true; but it knows what those laws are ; whereas matter does not. This makes a great difference. Matter yields a blind and unconscious obedience ; but the mind is able to exercise a foresight; to place itself in new situations; to subject itself to new influences, and thus control in a measure its own laws. In a word, mind is free; we have the best evidence of it, that of our consciousness. Matter is a slave; we learn that from all our observation of it. It does not turn to the right or lest; it does not do this or that as it chooses ; but the subject of an overpowering allotment, it is borne onward to the appointed mark by an inflexible destiny.-If these views be correct, we see here a new reason for not confounding and identifying these two existences.

$. 57. No exact correspondence between the mental and the

bodily state.

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The train of thought in the last section naturally leads us to remark further, that there is an absence of that precise correspondence between the mental and bodily state, which would evidently follow from the admission of matcrialism. Those, who make thought and feeling the result of material organization, commonly locate that organization in the brain. It is there the great mental exercises, in the phraseology of materialists, are secreted, or are developed, or are brought out in some other mysterious way, by means of purely physical combination and action. Hence, such is the fixed and unalterable nature of matter and its results, if the brain be destroyed, the soul must be destroyed also ; if the brain be injured, the soul is proportionally injured; is the material action be disturbed, there must be an exactly corresponding disturbance of the mental action. The state of the mind, on a fair interpretation of this doctrine, is not less dependent on that of the body, than the complicated motions of the planetary system are on the law of gravitation. But this view, whether we assign the residence of the soul to the brain or to any other part of the bodily system, does not appear to be