stance, which may be more immediately under our observation.

Now the special instance to which we here more particularly allude, is the relation of the human soul to the human body. Modern philosophers have, on this point, departed from the sounder doctrines of the ancients. For I have accidentally met with some obscure hints from their writings, which, indeed, would in all probability have escaped my notice, but for my own previous conclusions on the same subject; but which are sufficient to make me desire the leisure necessary for a more accurate scrutiny of these remains of the wisdom of antiquity. "Some of

the platonists," says Dr. Cudworth, "would not allow sensations to be passions, or passive states in the soul, but only active knowledges of the passions of the body, - παθων γνωσεις. "* With this opinion Dr. Cudworth does not coincide, nor does he make any reference to a particular author. The studious reader, however, who has understood my doctrine of sensation, can scarcely fail to see the opinion of these platonists in a new light, as an accurate statement of the same doctrine, which has been advocated, and, if I may trust my own. judgment, proved, in the beginning of this volume. Aristotle," observes the same learned and judi

*Immut. Moral. B. IV. ch. iii. p. 254.

cious authority,* "doth expressly deny the incorporeity of all sensitive souls, not in brutes only, but every where. But, at the same time, he declares that the mind or intellect is incorporeal, separable, and immortal." And, as a necessary consequence of regarding sensation as a corporeal power, he asserts the corruptibility of the sentient soul. For, speaking of the pure mind or intellect, he says, τουτο μονον ἀθανατον και ἀΐδιον, ὁδε παθητικος νους φθαρτος†—“ The agent Intellect alone is immortal and eternal, the passive corruptible."

This passage has been successively commented on by Cudworth,* Warburton, and Dr. Gillies, § as one of considerable difficulty; but I apprehend that its true and only solution will be found in the doctrines unfolded in the present work.

That these views of the nature and relation of soul and body, were entertained by the ancients, I think the more probable, because the Platonists, and others of the philosophers, as represented by Cudworth, had some notion, though perhaps not a very clear one, of that scale of being, the conception of which was first suggested to my own mind by reflecting on that relation. And the ob

* Intellectual System, Vol. I. Ch. i. p. 55. 4to. Ed. —He refers to Arist. De Gener. et Corr. Lib. II. ch. iii.

† Arist. De Anima. Lib. III. ch. vi.

Divine Legation, Vol. I. Book III. sect. iv.

§ Analysis of Aristotle's Works prefixed to his Ethics and Politics - p. 50, note.

scurity of the doctrine as unfolded in their works, seems to confirm the opinion of Cudworth, that they did not arrive at it by reasoning, but received it as part of the old dogmatical philosophy, which was brought from the East by those illustrious men, who made wisdom the object of their travels, the theme of their conversation, and the study of their lives. But their opinion is a matter of comparative indifference. The point cannot be settled by authority, but must be decided by facts.

Now I humbly submit that every thing which is known concerning animal and vegetable life, points directly to the conclusion, that there is an organic and sentient material common to them all; which becomes organized in one system or another according as it is determined by the germ of a particular species. The germ contains a portion of the material, with the specific law of organization but contains not all the life, or all the parts, which will be developed by its instrumentality. Some, indeed, seem to entertain that supposition, but let them reflect a moment what monstrous absurdities it involves. Think of an acorn. Well this acorn contains, they say, all the life, and all the parts, which are afterwards developed in the oak. It contains, therefore, the trunk, the branches, and the leaves, and these last are renewed in innumerable numbers every year. It contains also, of course, the many acorns which

will grow every year for a century or two; and the oaks which would grow out of these, with their trunks, branches, leaves, and innumerable acorns; and the innumerable oaks which will grow out of these, with their trunks, branches, leaves, and innumerable acorns; and so on ad infinitum, in a prodigiously rapid geometrical series. And yet this infinite progression is all fully and completely coiled up and organized in all its minute parts, in the heart of one little acorn, and of every little acorn, which a squirrel may eat, and so put an end to this more than infinitude of ingenuity. And out of a thousand such miraculous acorns, perhaps not more than one or two are ever permitted to grow:- what a prodigious waste of contrivance and of minute workmanship! Is it possible that any man can hold such an opinion? But how much more absurd will it appear, if we extend it to all the tribes of animals and vegetables! Surely that stated above is at least more probable, and it is satisfactory to know that it has been the opinion of eminent naturalists.

The organic and sentient material is not in equal quantities in all species, but in some is organized with a vast quantity of alloy. In the seed it is often found in greatest proportion. In many kinds of seed, as also in many roots, leaves, and whole plants, it exists in sufficient quantity to supply the material of sentient life to the larger animals,

and there is no kind of vegetable which does not furnish it to swarms of insects. This material is not often suffered to lie long waste or unappropriated; but where it exists unorganized, it soon becomes organised through the instrumentality of small germs, floating in the air, or deposited by insects. Thus the milk by which young animals live and grow, and which contains the material of life in large quantity, becomes, when kept under the form of cheese, a living mass of animals visible even to the naked eye. Had the milk in its original state been received into a larger animal, the mites would not have appeared; but the same organic and sentient material, which is separately developed in the mites, would have been incorporated and arranged according to the laws of a greater system. When that system decays, the organic particles again, according to certain laws of affinity, form new relations with other sentient systems, of which the germs are usually afforded by the ova of flies, and the putrifying carcass becomes again a mass of life and of sensation, not indeed under one system, but under many. Flour, meal, bread, and biscuits, no less than cheese, become in the course of time full of a peculiar kind of mites; and, if grain be slightly macerated in cold water, it soon displays to the microscope a development of innumerable animalcules. Water itself is full of life and animation. The air is full of it. The mould out of which vegetables grow