matter being distinguished by size, figure, colour, &c., and in organized nervous matter-possessing faculties for perception, sensation, &c., and a remembrance of other states of being, which are not matter itself, but a quality of matter resulting from material organization, like the perfume arising from the leaves of a rose, which perfume is the result of the flower and cannot be abstracted from it-consequently, can have no existence separate from the rose. Secondly, 'nature' is a word with a double meaning, used in relation to God, it means the aggregate of all existence, in relation to a fractional part of matter, it means its ascertained properties. You enquire further, Do you possess omnipresence and omniscience that you tell me matter NEVER is annihilated? Will the oracle then, please to inform me, if ever mind is reduced to nothing? But supposing you could prove that matter never IS, would that be any evidence that matter never CAN be annihilated?' I do not possess either omnipresence or omniscience, yet, I am in receipt of sufficient information to enable me to answer, without any fear of presumption being laid to my charge. Listen to the language of our greatest Natural Philosopher on this subject

'One of the most obvious cases, says Sir J. Herschel, of apparent destruction is, when anything is ground to dust and scattered to the winds. But it is one thing to grind a fabric to powder, and another to annihilate its materials, scattered as they may be, they must fall somewhere, and continue, if only as ingredients of the soil, to perform their humble but useful part in the economy of nature. The destruction produced by fire is more striking. In many cases, as in the burning of a piece of charcoal or taper, there is no smokenothing visibly dissipated and carried away; the burning body wastes and disappears, while nothing seems to be produced but warmth and light, which we are not in the habit of considering as substances, and when all has disappeared, except perhaps some trifling ashes, we naturally enough suppose it is gone, lost, destroyed. But when the question is examined more exactly, we detect in the invisible stream of heated air which ascends from the glowing coal or flaming wax, the whole ponderable matter only united in a new combination with the air and dissolved in it. Yet, so far from being destroyed, it has only become again what it was before it existed in charcoal or an active agent in the business of the world and a main support of animal and vegetable life, and is still susceptible of running again and again the same round as circumstances may determine; so that for ought we can see to the contrary, the same identical atom may be concealed for thousands of centuries in a limestone rock; may at length be quarried, set free in the lime kilns, mix with the air, be absorbed from it by plants, and in succession become part of the frame of myriads of living beings, till some concurrence of events consigns it once more to a long repose, which, however, 'no way unfits it again from resuming its former activity. This is the opinion of the greatest living authority on the subject of the indestructibility of matter; and if this cannot be overturned then my argument is irrefutable in the eternity of matter, and consequently, there is no necessity for the 'existence of a God. You ask me if matter never CAN BE annihilated?' I have nothing to do with 'may be's, or can be's, the fact is, what I advocate, it cannot now be annihilated, therefore, there is no presumption as to the future being contradictory to the present in this instance. You want to know 'If mind is ever reduced to nothing?' I am ignorant of mind, except as a property of organized nervous matter, and when the machinery which regulates the human organs and their functions is destroyed-how can I expect mind to continue its existence independent of ITS organs. You say, 'How do I know that God never has interfered to prevent the ordinary effects of 'flood and flame,' and, if he does not always interfere, even to save useful lives, am I a better judge of what is wisest and best for the universe than'

he ?"

In this case, sir, you reason upon the existence of the assumption about which we are in dispute, contrary to logic and subsersive of the principles of our debate. I know, by common experience, vessels are sunk with hundreds of Christians in them, as well as towns and villages are destroyed by flood and flame, accidents hourly occur, in which Christians' lives are lost-their families plunged into misery or poverty and from this RESULT their children grow up hardened in crime, and progenitors of SIN to such a degree as to endanger the morals of the community, and all this, in a many cases, might have been averted, if God existed and CHOSE to save his children, on their supplications to Him. No human father would neglect their ery, providing he knew their wants, and had the power of alleviating them; and as happiness is preferable to misery all the world over, and knowing that if God existed, he would rescue the human race, (according to his word) therefore, I was justified (by universal experience) in asserting the above.on oh I

of I find my communication is growing too long. I, therefore, pass over to your only attempt to prove a creation, is If you carefully examine the strata of the earth, you will find that there have been successive creations of animal and vegetable life, and that there was a period when there was neither. Creation then, whatever you make of it, is a fact. Here then is the pith of the whole question-and atheism is to judged by it, it is sate. we find different STRATA as well as different vegetables, reptiles, and animals, imbedded in the remains of this strata the history of the antediluvian world is written upon the leaves of the great 'stone book' but there is no mention of 'creation. We find an adaptation of vegetables to what we call the primary rocks, and a successive gradation in point of intricacy of structure in succeeding strata. The one petrified in its grave and replaced by another, whether we look in the great Lias deposits, or the ice-bound tomb of the Megatherium. These simply are CHANGES not creations besides these are but organisms, and if they were CREATED it would not affect my argument if my opponent can prove from geology, that there was a commencement of matter, (not its forms) then I yield up the point, not before; and thus I dispose of geological facts,' denying that proof can be advanced in support of matters creation" from any part of geological evidence. This sir, closes my case in reply to your first letter, and from the facts previously advanced and now defended, I consider there is no necessity for the existence of a God.'s gun to sidiyaberra

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You appear either unable or unwilling to understand my argument from 'consciousness." Our thinking readers will perceive that you have not met it at all. Let me render it to you again, in different, and, if possible, in simpler language, so that you may have still greater difficulty in evading its force.

Of the substrata of mind and of matter, we know nothing. mind and matter only through their phenomena. That they are not identical or alike is obvious from the entire dissimilarity of these phenomena. Between them there is scarcely a solitary point of resemblance. We have cognizance of the phenomena of mind through our consciousness, of the phenomena of matter hrough our sensations. But we know our sensations only through our con

sciousness; consciousness, therefore, is the ultimate appeal, and furnishes the highest evidence. A ploughman and a philosopher are talking together. The ploughman says, There is a man on horseback crossing yonder stream.' The philosopher asks him, how he knows? His reply is, I see him.' But how do you know that you see Him? inquires the philosopher. Because I am conscious of it,' answers the ploughman; and this is the ultimatum of evidence. He is not conscious of a man on horseback crossing the stream, but he is conscious that he sees a man on horseback crossing. He is conscious, however, of his own existence, and of its spiritual phenomena, sensation, reflection, memory, will, love, &c. There is, therefore, a higher certainty of these' spiritual facts, than of any material facts' whatever. I did not assert that love, joy, hope, &c., have any separate existence of themselves; therefore, your attempt to disprove this is a work of sheer supererogation. What I asserted was, that they are phenomena standing directly revealed to our consciousness, and of greater certainty than such phenomena as weight, extension, divisibility, and inertia, which are revealed to us by sensation; in as much as our sensations are known to us only through our consciousness.

Your bell' illustration is to me 'sounding brass and tinkling cymbal,' for I fail to perceive its significance.

You take it for granted that all knowledge of every kind proceeds from sensation. Had you not better attempt some proof of your assertion. Does the knowledge of our existence proceed from sensation? Is it by the senses that we know that two and two are four; and that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles?

You defy me to produce a single example of existence discovered by means of attributes without knowledge of the organization to which these attributes belong' Your own existence is one.

You appeal to Berkeley and to Berkeley you shall go. I shall leave it all to our readers to judge whether he decides in favour of demonstration by the senses, and whether he supports your position. It is your own temerity that has exposed you to his sledge-hammer attack.

It seems to be a general pretence of the unthinking herd, that they cannot see God.' Could we but see him, say they, as we see a man, we should believe that he is, and believing obey his commands. But alas, we need only open our eyes to see the sovereign Lord of all things with a more full and clear view, than we do any of our fellow-creatures. A human spirit or person is not perceived by sense, as not being an idea; when therefore we see the colour, size, figure and motions of man, we perceive only certain sensations or ideas excited in our own minds; and these being exhibited to our view in sundry distinct collections, serve to mark out unto us the existence of finite and created spirits like ourselves. Hence it is plain, we do not see a man, if by man is meant that which lives, moves, perceives and thinks as we do but only such a collection of ideas, as directs us to think there is a distinct principle of thought and motion like to ourselves, accompanying and represented by it. And after the same manner we see God; all the difference is, that some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas denotes a particular mind, whethersoever we direct our view, we do at all times and in all places perceive manifest tokens of Divinity: everything we see, hear, feel, or anywise perceive by sense, being a sign or effect of the power of God; as is the perception of those very motions, which are produced by men.'. There is not any one mark that denotes a man, or effect produced by him, which doth not more strongly evince the being of that Spirit who is the

author of nature.

It is quite clear that you know nothing of the idealism of Berkeley, but from Lewes's Biographical Dictionary on Philosophy. Another extract from his own works will make you deeply repent your rashness in referring to him.

Some truths there are, says the Bishop of Cloyne, so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be,

* Works of George Berkeley, D.D., in 3 yols, page 26.

to wit, that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies. which compose the frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being is to be perceived or known; that, consequently, so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind, or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit; it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them and existence independent of a spirit. From what has been said, it follows there is not any other substance than spirit, or that which perceives.'

If further proof were necessary that Berkeley denied the materiality of the world, I could quote scores of passages from his writings. But as your letter occupies far more than the allotted space, I must necessarily be brief. Berkeley's theory was this-That our ideas, and nothing else, are the real objects of our knowledge. That it is not in some imaginary substratum called matter, of which we have no sensible evidence, but in our ideas which are the immediate objects of perception, that all mankind believe; with great ability, he assailed the various hypotheses by which the existence of matter had been vindicated; and endeavoured to show that the very essence of an object is for it to be perceived by the mind. He strongly asserted the impossibility of ever finding a proof that our sensations are occasioned by objects actually material, since it it is as easy for the Deity to produce them in us without such objects as with them. And if you once allow the fundamental axiom that all our knowledge of the external world is representative and not presentative, that it is mediate and not direct, it is difficult to perceive how his conclusion can be avoided. All the passages which you have taken from Lewes only prove that Berkeley did not deny a related and phenomenal world; they do not disprove his rejection of its materiality. The matter in which he believed was its phenomena; that which is seen, felt, tasted, and touched. The merest tyro in philosophy knows that Berkeley's was a system of idealism, and not of sensationalism as you affirm. He admits the testimony of the senses; but argues that matter is not perceivable by the senses but only its phenomena. According to him, sensation does not give us any information regarding a material world, it only bears testimony to certain modes and changes in our own minds, which might be produced without any objective reality apart from us.

You seem to hesitate at nothing in order to make out your position. You seem careless how many unfounded assertions you make. You give us definitions * as readily as you would eat strawberries. If one does not suit another may. If one is proved worthless and untenable, with the utmost sang froid, you coin another. 'Consciousness is the aggregate knowledge of the senses!!' Logic is the thorough knowledge of any subject, of the means and end of any domestic problem !!!' Shade of the Stagyrite! listen to the Yorkshire champion of secularism, 'the philosophy of the people' of the nineteenth century!

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With such definitions as those there is little likelihood of our agreeing upon the fundamental facts of reasoning, or the ultimate criterion of truth. There must be certain fundemental data of reasoning and if natural consciousness does not supply these data, will you tell me what does? Will you tell me how you can have any knowledge of your sensations but through your consciousness; and then, explain to me, how you came to assert that consciousness 'is the aggregate knowledge of all the senses?" Whatever you may say to the contrary, nothing can be more philosophical than to build upon the primary data of consciousness, and the very slightest reflection will satisfy you, that, however originating, these data are not our sensations.

I still hold, then, that there is a knowledge of which we have a greater certainty than that which comes to us through the senses. If you will attempt to prove the existence of that material world, which you seem to regard as the only existence, you will speedily perceive this. You can never prove the existence of a NON-EGO without supposing the existence of an EGO. Every

attempt to prove the existence of a world without, involves the hypothesis not only of your own existence, but of your distinctness from that world. You cannot attempt the proof that matter is the only existence, without stultifying and refuting yourself in your first proposition. You cannot prove matter, without admitting mind. You cannot prove to me that you have a body, without convincing me that you have a soul. Even if you should try to disprove the existence of mind as separate from matter, your disproof would be its own refutation. Absolute Phyrronism itself could not be established without con tradicting itself; for an attempt to prove that there is nothing implies a prover, though, perhaps, not a very wise one!

The knowledge of our existence and of our own mental phenomena is, not obtained through the senses, but by direct intuition, our knowledge of the external world is conveyed by a mediating idea or conception. It scarcely needs a philosopher to say which is the more certain. The one kind of knowledge is absolute, the other relative; the one simple, the other complex; in the one there is only a single object involved; in the other there are two-the REALITY and the IDEA; the mental decision involved in the one is affirmatory, in the other it is problematic. Intuition, then, is surer than sensation, and even than formal deduction, for it is immediate and absolute,

When you say that men kindle fires by intuition, you seem to mean by instinct. I am quite at a loss to perceive the use of your illustration, 'unless it. is to darken counsel by' figures' without knowledge.'

Your definition of consciousness is incorrect; and, therefore, much that you say about it is absurd.

An artist's preference of one picture to another; an Englishman's or an Arab's choice of a wife, from opposite qualities, may prove a difference of taste, but do not at all invalidate the fact that without the data of consciousness, or of direct intuition, you cannot build up any true philosophy.

If you have not noticed my feelings, neither have you met my arguments. I did not ask you to tell me the simplest fact in chemistry. I wanted to know by whom or by what the chemical processes of matter of which you talk so largely are necessitated?-and this you have not told me. I am not in search of the fact of mechanical combination, and chemical affinity. The fact I admit. I want to know the reason of it, if chance or law, and not supreme and sovereign Intelligence, is on the throne of the universe.

'Nature,' you tell me, 'is a word with a double meaning; used in relation to God, it means the aggregation of all existence, in relation to a fractional part of matter, it means its ascertained properties.' Now, as I wish to put you on one or other of the horns of a dilemma, you will be on your guard in informing me, whether you use the word 'nature,' in relation to God,' or 'to a fractional part of matter,' ;-but I must press for a clear and decided answer.

Your say

Your assertion that matter never can be annihilated, indicates the greatest presumption. It supposes that you have been everywhere in the universe, that you know its secret, and that you have found out all its powers. Sir John Herschel's statement only proves that we cannot destroy matter, but not that matter is never, and never can be destroyed. There was no need for the quotation at all, for I readily admitted that we cannot destroy matter. ing that you have nothing to do with can be's, shows very clearly that you need lessons both in language and in logic. Why, sir, do you not mean by the indestructibility of matter, that matter cannot be destroyed? Now, if man were the only being in the universe, evidence that he cannot destroy it would be satisfactory proof that it is indestructible. But to suppose that he is the only being in the universe, is a begging the question. The only proper proof of your position is not that matter has not been, is not, or even will not be destroyed, but that no being can destroy it. This you can never do till you are omnis