Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay on matter : in five chapters. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![[ *3 ] CHAP. IV. THE FINER COMPOSITION AND ACTION OF MATTER. THE miftaken pride of man may afk, Is there no difference in the SOUL which informs my body, and the living principle which actuates matter in other forms ?•— I anfwcr, that, if by Soul is meant fomething diftindt from matter, or that which is immaterial applied to the matter of my body, and thereby inducing motion or a&ion, I can- not comprehend the queftion ; becaufe I can have no ideas of that which is immaterial.—It muft be a fomething, or rather a nothing (for fomething is matter) which is not known in philofophy or reafon ; and, we would wifh to fpeak here of things only which belong to reafon. Reafoning is no more than the flneft operation of matter which we know of; and we can reafon upon nothing but matter.—Reafoning is the comparing of material impreffions or ideas. We cannot reafon without comparifon. The foul, in the fenfe of my queftion, is not matter ; we know Nothing that is not matter ; we have Nothing to com- pare things with but matter; we cannot, therefore, reafon upon foul in the fenfe of my queftion, for want of compa- rifon. The word Soul gives us another inftance of the impofition of words. We cannot realize what our fenfes cannot perceive, what our reafon cannot operate upon and affent to. Reafon, in vain, may try it's operation upon Soul; it will find nothing to compare it to, and can therefore con- vince us of Nothing, but that the foul, in the fenfe of my queftion, is Nothing. If the foul be not matter, it is Nothing. Let me afk any one how I can reafon upon Nothing ? And with what kind of propriety or truth I can fay, that I believe I am poffefied of a foul which my reafon cannot act upon,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21136099_0023.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
