ture, though depending ftill upon God: For it greatly corroborates our Affent to this, and Belief of it, to fee what we believe have its Root and Foundation in the very Nature of Things.

WE can never difcern or discover, with all our Attention, any Quality in the human Soul, befides Thought, and the Power to think. Whatever the Soul does, either within itself, or externally, it acts not by Touch or Impulfe, but by the Force of fome Thought, whether that Thought is called Will, or Understanding, or Appetite, or by any other Name. And likewife when it fuffers, either from itself, or from without, that Suffering too is a Species of Thought: So that we can find nothing at all in the Soul, befides the Power of Thinking, and its various Manners. Now if the Nature of the Soul, or the very Effence of it, as some are us'd to speak, confifts entirely in Thought, 'tis effentially Life, and is active or conscious of itself without ceafing; nor can it any otherwise perish than by Annihilation. For if you take away all Thought from it, or the Power to think, you deprive it of its very Effence, which is the fame Thing with annihilating or deftroying the Soul.

We

own that this is in the Power of God; nor is that the Queftion at prefent: But we deny that its Life, or its Power to think, can poffibly perish, the Effence of the Soul remaining; which from this Constitution of C 2

the

the Soul, if you admit of it, in my Opinion, truly and neceffarily follows.

THEY who after this Manner conftitute the Nature of the human Soul, by that very Thing render it immortal, and inceffantly active or conscious of itself, unlefs 'tis reduc'd to nothing. But they who, befides this Force of thinking, and this vital Energy, if we may be allow'd to borrow that Word, attribute to the Soul Extenfion and Dimenfion, and lay this as a Foundation antecedent to all Thought, they are to confider by what Means they are able to prove the future Life of the Soul. I fay, the future Life, not the fimple Duration; for 'tis one Thing fimply to endure, or to laft, like a Stock or a Stone; and another Thing to live and to enjoy Senfe and Thought; which is what all Men understand when they hear the Name of Immortality, and of the Life hereafter. But if once an extended Subftance is placed in the Room of a Soul, in which Life or Thought are not neceffarily included, it will depend upon external Causes, or upon divine Favour, whether it fhall want or enjoy Life and Thought. But I am unwilling to quarrel with any one who is for preferving Immortality for us at any Rate, whether he derive it from Nature, or from divine Favour.

BUT now to make a farther Progress in my Argument: They who endeavour to perfuade us out of Immortality, than which

nothing

nothing can be dearer to our Thoughts, will have the Soul to be not only an extended Substance, but really and truly Corporeal in every Refpect, and fo, like Body, capable of being diffolved. These Reasoners I look upon as profefs'd Enemies to human Nature. But even towards Enemies there are certain Rights and Decencies that ought to be obferved. Let us, therefore, lay afide all paffionate Reproaches, and injurious Language, and argue the Matter candidly and calmly with them.

WE will, if you please, for the fake of fhortening the Cause, take it for granted, by common Confent, that there is fomething incorporeal in the Nature of Things; or if you are unwilling to take any Thing for granted, that is not extorted from you by the Force of Reason, we will, in the first Place, prove that God is not a Body, or is not corporeal. And, after we have laid this Foundation, we will proceed to examine the Nature of the Soul, which is the Point in Question.

THOUGH it may justly be reckon'd among thofe Abfurdities which require no Proof, that the corporeal World created itself, without the Hand of an Artist, without any preceding Defign, or Thought, or Counfel; and though it be no lefs abfurd, that that High Wisdom and Sovereign Power, which shine forth fo brightly in the Workmanship and Government of Nature, fhould be innate or implanted

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implanted in blind and grofs Matter; yet fo oddly are the Minds of fome Men turned, that whatever does not ftrike the outward Senfes, or fill the Imagination; or, that I may speak more plainly, whatever is not corporeal, all that they efteem as nothing. Well then, let us briefly examine the Thing: If God is corporeal, he muft either be the whole corporeal World, all the univerfal Mafs of Matter; or fome certain Portion, fome Species, or fome fingular Kind of it. If you affirm the latter, you fay nothing; because no Kind of Matter is unalterable. All Matter, indeed, as to its Substance, is one and the fame; but as to its Modes and Qualities, it alters continually: That which is hard to Day, to Morrow grows fofter, or is melted; and that which is thin and fubtle to Day, grows hard, and thickens to Morrow, and is deprived of its Motion. For Motion paffes without ceafing from fome Parts of Matter to others; as likewife the other Qualities of Matter by the Mediation of Motion; and nothing remains under the fame Form perpetually. Therefore your God would be like Proteus; or rather, by the various Mutations of Matter, would often die and revive, Befides, as he is not univerfal Matter, he cannot be omniprefent; nor only that, but he would be broken afunder, and his Subftance would have Chafms in feveral Places, by the Interpofition of other Bodies; for if your God is the thin and

fluid Portion of Matter, by the Interpofition of hard Bodies there would be a Solution of his Continuity: If you make him of the hard and grofs Part of Matter, he would be often and varioufly torn from himself by the Fluid that would run between his divided Parts. So that by this Means you will have not One, but Numberlefs Gods; Nor would it at last be an entire God, but fo many broken Limbs and mishapen Pieces of a God. Lastly, you include your God in fingle Particles of Matter; or Part of him in one, and Part of him in another: Chufe which Way you will, the Choice will be down right Stupidity, which it is not worth while to take any farther Notice of.

You fee how wretchedly God is made up of fome particular Matter, be it what it will that you chufe: Nor is it lefs abfurd, or less impoffible, to exalt the univerfal Mafs of Matter into a God and a divine Nature. If you imagine that all the vaft Structure of this vifible World, and all Bodies whatever, celestial, terreftrial, animated, unanimated, Stocks, Stones, Metals, and whatever is viler and more fordid than thefe; if you imagine all these to be God, in this your Folly furpaffes the Folly of the groffeft Heathens in the World; for they believed that the Deity which they adored was very different from the Marble or Wood, or whatever Statue they had confecrated to him. They believ'd, indeed, that the God inhabited, after fome Man

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