An essay on matter : in five chapters.

  • Isaac Ledyard
Date:
MDCCLXXXIV [1784]
Catalogue details

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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    [ ] enables mc to compare it with other lengths, or to fay that two and two make four. If I fee my Cane (which is reafoning upon the fame ground) Handing againft the wall of my room, and it after- wards be removed, I have ftill an idea of the place it occupied and the diftance it marked upon the wall—Docs it follow, becaufe the cane is removed, that my prefent idea is from an immaterial impreffion ? No. The idea of the cane and the idea of the wall it ftood againft, which was annexed to it, ftill remain in my mind. If any man ftill think that he has an idea of immaterial diftance, let him fuppofe himfelf the only matter in creation, or that he has any knowledge of, and then afk himfelf if he thinks he could have any idea of diftance, not allowing himfelf to divide his own body into parts or diftances. But it may be faid, that though I could prove that ideas are the imprefiions of external matter upon the matter of my mind, and thereby prove that thinking is the operation of matter; yet I cannot prove that the iffue of that operation is material, i. e. that judgement which is the refult of com- parifon, is material. To this I have only to anfwer, that I can have no idea of any deduction from matter being any thing elfe than matter; unlefs I could fuppofe that matter could beget fpirit. If I could fhow the whole operation of my mind, then I fhould prove a Soul, or a Something that is not Matter, for I know myfelf to be Matter; to know the whole operation of it, muft fuppofe an intelligence in me, which is above me (I add inconfiftent with me) and is not Matter. If fuch an intelligence was in me, it would prove itfelf in this way. Eut we ought to have nothing to do with fnppofitions; our buftnels is only to fee how far reafon can go, and what is beyond that, is, and ought to be, no concern of man- kind.