Tremaine continued for some time silent, and at length confessed that the argument drawn from the extension and impenetrability of matter was what, in his most sceptical days, he never could answer, much less now.. "It was pride alone," said he, "and a different temper of mind, that kept me from giving it its due weight. It is long, however, since this temper has left me."

"You rejoice me," cried Evelyn; “máy I now therefore go back to my ship?"

"You may at least proceed," said Tremaine.

"In my turn," replied Evelyn, "I say, not yet; for I wish to pursue this matter. Tell me; if the mind be material, and its operations nothing but matter acting upon matter, must not these operations be governed by the same laws which govern all other operations of matter?"?

"I once thought otherwise," said Tremaine, "but I am now free to say that probably they must."

"The laws of motion, for example," continued Evelyn," discovered and established by experiment by Sir Isaac Newton, and afterwards brought to their present wonderful perfection by succeeding philosophers.'

"I know not your aim, exactly," said Tremaine. "What I mean is, must not all these operations of matter be, like other operations, mechanical?

"That has been my fear and my doubt," answered Tremaine..

"Why then," said Evelyn, "show me why what we call the laws of mechanics must not apply to our mental operations, as well as to all the subjects of natural philosophy, which are daily pursued with such an exactness of calculation, as to be within the compass of a schoolboy's knowledge?"

"Explain a little more," said Tremaine.

66 No more than this; that if the action and reaction between mind and its ideas are mere matter acting upon matter, the whole would be a subject of mathematical calculation; the effects regular, certain, and invariable: and our great friend here, (pointing to the picture of Newton,) would have discovered the laws of action between body and mind, with as much precision as he did the laws of motion."

Tremaine owned this was new to him, and begged his friend would proceed.

"The very subject of motion itself furnishes, perhaps, the most conclusive argument of all."

* I know your meaning," said Tremaine," you would tell me matter cannot move itself, and therefore spirit must."

Fa“ I would, indeed," said Evelyn, “and I shall be surprised to discover how you resist the argument."

"It is not that I do not think it ingenious, nay powerful," rejoined Tremaine; "but though difficult to conceive how matter can move itself, it is not difficult, once finding motion in the world, to imagine how it may be made to change its direction according as the necessity and laws of our Being require.".

"And who, and what is to effect this change of direction, according as a law may require it? I need not ask you if matter, brute unintelligent matter, can do this?"

"And why not?" asked Tremaine. "Once set matter in motion, and who shall say in what directions it may not fall?".

"You reduce this directing, this law-giving power, then, to chance. Now a law, is not chance; but producing a regular effect from the preconceived design which created the law, must be the absolute contrary of chance."

"I own this seems true," said Tremaine.

"Then," pursued Evelyn, "there must be at least as much of intelligence and design, as well as of force distinct from matter, to give its motion a direc tion which it cannot give itself, as to produce the original motion, which it could not produce itself."

“This possibly may also be true," said Tremaine. "Then what is it among men that gives this direction? What but the will, proceeding from thought, contrivance, design-in a word, the mind; and

hence the great position, that mind, as it governs, so it is distinct from matter.”

"I am pleased with your precision," observed Tremaine, after musing some time. "Yet I remember Voltaire....."

"Then excuse me if I say," interrupted Evelyn, "that you remember a dunce-to say the most charitable thing I can of him. At least if he was not the greatest of all dunces in philosophy, he was the wickedest of all men. I fear the brilliancy of his parts decides to which class he belongs. I remember too, when reverting to this subject, he tells you, that if the soul say to the feet, walk, and the feet have the gout, they will not obey. Hence he would infer, that the soul, or will, has nothing to do with motion."*

“I should like to hear his refutation," said Tremaine.

"It is in the power of a child," answered Evelyn; "for who does not see that an argument which supposes any given instrument, must suppose it at least what it calls it, an instrument; and that, in reply, to suppose it not an instrument, is a despicable quibble. Here, the feet first supposed, are instruments of walking. In reply, they are supposed not instruments of walking. Can we be stopt with such trash as this?" Tremaine felt a little overborne.

* Dict. Philos. Ame,

"Leaving the subject of motion," proceeded Evelyn, "though we have the most irrefragable proof that it must proceed from some other substance than matter, and therefore that what it does proceed from must be immaterial-let me ask you if you have made out the problem that has puzzled every divine, physician, and moral and natural philosopher, since the world began ?"

"Of course not," said Tremaine, "if these haye failed. But your problem?"

"How is it that the soul perceives?".

66

Certainly through the senses," answered Tremaine; "nor do I believe a word of the fine romance of Plato, adopted, or at least not denied, by some modern divines, (the elder Sherlock, I think, among them,) that many ideas are the soul's reminiscences from another state. I tell you fairly, I am an enemy to all the philosophy of innate ideas; and if you are going to uphold them, we never shall agree."

"It is not necessary that I should,” answered Evelyn; "for without giving any opinion on Plato, or Sherlock, I am inclined to agree with Locke, and of course with you. But even your opinion can only amount to this, that the soul can only perceive through the help of the senses. How it perceives with that help, I should be glad if you will tell me."

"I cannot," said Tremaine; "but in seeing, there is a picture formed on the retina of the eye."