SECT. II.

Nature and essential Properties of Matter.

WHATEVER is material, must have all those properties which are essential to its nature, because, it is from these essential properties that its nature is both denominated and known. Among those properties which are necessary to the existence of matter, may be included its solidity, its magnitude and figure. Without these distinguishing properties, we can form no conception of any thing that is material, and in what subject soever we find these properties, from that discovery we denominate this substance to be material. Nor are these properties mere aecidents of matter. The impossibility of conceiving any thing which is material, to exist where these properties are not; will satisfactorily prove that they are essential to its nature, and therefore necessary to its existence. For if any given portion of matter, though never so minute, can be conceived to exist, (though it have undergone every modification of which it is capable in the endless series of divisibility) still these properties must invariably adhere to its minutest parts, and are as applicable to an atom as to a globe. Neither is it possible for us to conceive a separation between them. Where there is solidity, there must be magnitude, and where there is magnitude, there must be figure; and if we could conceive either of these qualities to be annihilated, the others must necessarily perish with it. The infinite divisibility which matter is capable of undergoing, cannot affect its permanent qualities; each particle is an equal partaker, and where these qualities are supposed to be annihilated, there the idea of matter can be no more.

In addition to this, all matter must be extended in proportion to its magnitude. For, if we substract the idea of exstension from any material substance,

the ideas of solidity, magnitude, and figure, must perish with it, and the mind is left in possession of a perfect nonentity. The idea of matter is also necessarily connected with that of space; not, that space is an essential property of matter, or to be reckoned amongst its modes or accidents, but it is that pure expansion in which all substances must exist. The identity of pure space can be no otherwise affected by matter, than, that it is engrossed or empty in proportion to its presence or absence; and in proportion as space is devoid of matter, matter is devoid of existence. If, then, matter cannot exist abstracted from those given spaces which it occupies, space itself must be necessary to the exist ence of matter, although it is not an essential property of its nature. And as the ideas of solidity, magnitude, figure, and extension, are all necessary to our idea of matter, and are inseparable from it, and from each other; it follows, that matter, under every mode of divisibility which it is capable of undergoing, must be a solid, extended, divisible substance, always partaking of magnitude and figure. Indeed, magnitude and figure are but mere properties, and therefore can have but relative existences; and whenever we form concep. tions of them, we mention them in relation to some substance in which they inhere; and if we destroy that relation, we can no more form an idea of either, than we can of black, blue, or red, without hav ing a reference to some portion of matter in which these colours exist by inherence, which every one knows is totally impossible.

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SECT. III.

There may be Spiritual Substances, although we be ignorant of their Essences.

Nor only the existence of matter is so evident that it admits of sensible proof,-but there are spiritual substances, which also must have a positive existence; though by being incapable of communicating themselves through the medium of sensation like matter, they are more remote from common apprehension. Distance in nature, is, however, no more a proof of the nonexistence of spirit, than distance in space is a proof of the nonexistence of matter. Positive existence can have no relation, either to distance or perception: it is true, that clearness of apprehension communicates to the mind the idea of assurance, and this assurance the certainty of its Being; but Being itself, exists independent either of our clearness of apprehension, or our assurance of the certainty of its existence. Not only so, but whatsoever has a positive existence, must have existed antecedently to our apprehension of it; because apprehension, in its very nature, supposes the pre existence of that which is apprehended; for to suppose it possible, for us to have an apprehension of what had not a previous existence, is to suppose we can apprehend what has no existence, which includes this contradiction, that we can apprehend, that of which it is impossible for us to have the most distant apprehension.

Hence, then, it follows, that there may be substances, the natures of which, although totally unknown, may nevertheless be certain and positive; and certain qualities in those substances, with which we are unacquainted, that are too remote for the human intellect to grasp. For, as our perception of existence depends upon existence itself for its own being, and not existence upon our per

ception of it, nothing more is necessary to our certainty of the existence of an immaterial substance, than some line which will lead us with precision to that spiritual source from whence it emanated.And if in exploring these intellectual regions, but one ray can be found, which will infallibly lead us to the genuine source from whence it sprung, it is sufficient to all the purposes of demonstration; and that demonstration will as infallibly prove both the real existence and nature of that source, as if it had been an object of animal sensation.

That matter does exist, has been already admitted and defined; and, that spiritual substances exist also, is a truth no less certain: it is true, we can by no means comprehend the physical nature of spirit, neither can we comprehend that of matter; but this want of comprehension, no more precludes the possibility of the existence of the former, than the latter. That secret extended something, in which magnitude and figure inhere, has hitherto eluded the researches of philosophy, and rendered itself known by those properties only, which are at once essential to, and inseparable from its nature; and, in like manner, the real essences of all spiritual substances, are in themselves unknown to the human mind, and the substance itself is demonstrated to exist, only by those emanations which we discover in the faculties of our own minds, which matter is incapable of producing, and which therefore can flow from no other than a spiritual substance.

It is certain, from what has been already said, that wherever consciousness and perception are found to exist, they plainly demonstrate the exist-. ence of some common principle in which they inhere, to which they belong, and from which they are inseparable. For could we suppose that there might be consciousness and perception, while we deny the existence of a conscious and perceiving

principle in which they inhere; we should be under the necessity of admitting that there may be consciousness, while nothing is supposed to be conscious, and that there may be perception, although there be nothing which perceives. If, then, it can be proved, that consciousness and perception_do exist, it necessarily follows that there must be some primary principle from whence they flow, some substance in which they inhere, and without which they could have no relative existence: and to trace this consciousness to its substance, to examine whether this substance be material or immaterial, is one principal design which I propose to myself in the following sheets.

When the infinitely wise God, for physical reasons which he has thought proper to conceal from us, called into existence a race of beings, which he has denominated human; he united in this link in the vast chain of Being, those different qualities, from the existence of which we denominate both matter and spirit. How this strange connection is formed, or by what secret ties these distant natures are united together, is not placed within the reach of human discernment to discover; nor is the discovery thereof anywise concerned in the subject which lies before us. That Man, with res pect to his body, is material, no one can doubt; we partake, in common with all other given portions of matter, all its essential properties. Our bodies partake of magnitude and figure; they are necessarily extended; and they occupy empty space. This is so evident, that proof itself would be an insult on so clear a point.

In addition to those corporeal parts of which our bodies are composed, every man feels within himself, an evident consciousness of his own existence. We perceive the existence of material objects by sensation; and by recollecting the past, and anticipating the future, we take into one view the re