Readers will be startled by such an admission.

Only those who confound a class, with the orders, genera, and species which it contains. Those, for example, who confound matter, in general, with perceptible matter.-What this latter is, I do not admit myself not to know.

But perhaps perceptible matter includes all

matter.

Nay, if this were proved, I should at once pronounce the soul, (for it is imperceptible,) to be immaterial. But there exists matter which escapes the ken of human sense.

For example?

Oxygen, for example. I might perhaps add hydrogen and nitrogen; and I would add light, if I agreed with those who hold it to be invisible. For, I do agree, that if not perceived by the eye, light is not perceptible by any human sense. As for heat, this is not light; but only a usual attendant upon it; and therefore if it be really, or quasi felt,—this does not prove that its luminous comrade is palpable.Again, the experiments of such chemists as Sir Humphry Davy, have rendered that percep

F

tible, which, until their scientific skill operated upon it, had not been so.-Had it not been matter, before it endured those operations? Otherwise Chemistry

Of course it had. could turn immaterial into material; (which would be an approach to creative power,) and if the human soul got into its clutches, could convert, or pervert it into matter.

Here, if you be serious, you go too far. Though perhaps the will of God is, after all, the only barrier which I could, on such an hypothesis, set up against the Chemist's theoBut in the meantime I seem to

retic power.

have proved my point; viz. that there is such a substance as imperceptible matter.*

You do appear to have established this.

Then it must be bad logic, to pronounce, that because the soul is imperceptible, it therefore is immaterial.

I agree; nor am I surprised to find the percipient to be imperceptible. If the case were otherwise, we should encounter an incongruous

* And see on,—a quotation from Milton, in pages 52, 53.

confusion of the active with the passive.*—But the qualities of (say) oxygen are perceptible, though it be not perceivable itself.

And are none of the qualities of Mind alike perceptible? Is any power of oxygen more clearly perceptible, than is the thinking power or faculty of the Soul? Who fails to perceive that his neighbour thinks? Who is unconscious that he thinks himself?-Have we forgotten the celebrated enthymeme,-I think; therefore I am?

Your reasoning appears, to my understanding, to proceed fairly.

But what does the above logical deduction show?-Not what the soul is; but that it is. A consciousness of its existence is not a knowledge of its nature. The reasoning of the Mind appears, when we complete the syllogism, to be this: What acts, must be: I act ;† therefore I am.

Then your argument seems to be, that as matter is a class, which possibly includes various orders, genera, and species; and as the

Of that which perceives, with that which is perceived. + Mens loquitur.

only kind of matter with which we are—or can be-acquainted, is perceptible matter,—all that we can decidedly conclude, from the imperceptibility of mind, is that perceptible matter is not its substance. But we know that matters imperceptible exist; and cannot say positively that some one, or some one and more, of these (with the nature, powers and qualities of which we are unacquainted,) may not have been selected by the Almighty Creator, to form that thinking substance, which we call Mind.

By

You are right: this is my argument. what process is it, that human intellect can pretend to have discovered, that matter cannot think, and that what it has been pleased to call immateriality can? And this, where immateriality we cannot even conceive; (though we may believe ;) and where even with matter, I mean its essential nature, we are, and must remain unacquainted. How does Milton quaintly record the imperceptibility of the material essence? He represents ENs as thus addressing his eldest son, SUBSTANCE.

Good luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth,
The faery ladies danced upon the hearth:

Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spie;

And heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible.

O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king;
Yet every one shall make him underling;
And those that cannot live from him asunder,
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under :
In worth and excellence he shall outgo them;
Yet, being above them, he shall be below them:
From others he shall stand in need of nothing;
Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing, &c. &c.

I do not see what more the above lines teach us, concerning matter, (the material essence,) than this, that we do not, and cannot understand it.

Then to those who ask you "is the Soul material?" your answer is, "I cannot tell:" And to those who inquire of you, "is the Soul immaterial ?" you return the same answer; “I cannot tell."

Yes. But I go farther. I doubt whether you have not split into two questions, what properly is but one. For example: if I answer your first question in the affirmative, and

*The other nine predicaments, Quantity, Quality, &c.