translate the Hebrew word n here, for so I find it translated the very next verse but one; who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast which goeth down to the earth? In which places it is plain, that Solomon applies the word m, and our translators of him the word spirit, to a substance, out of which materiality was not wholly excluded, unless the spirit of a beast that goeth, downwards to the earth be immaterial. Nor did the way of speaking in our Saviour's time vary from this: St. Luke tells us +, that when our Saviour, after his resurrection, stood in the midst of them, they were affrighted, and supposed that they had seen wu, the Greek word which always answers spirit in English; and so the translators of the Bible render it here, they supposed that they had seen a spirit. But our Saviour says to them, Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have. Which words of our Saviour put the same distinction between body and spirit, that Cicero did in the place above-cited, viz. That the one was a gross compages that could be felt and handled; and the other such as Virgil describes the ghost or soul of Anchises.

Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum,

Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,

Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somnot.

I would not be thought hereby to say, that spirit never does signify a purely immaterial substance. In that sense the scripture, I take it, speaks, when it says, God is a spirit; and in that sense I have used it; and in that sense I have proved from my principles that there is a spiritual substance; and am certain that there is a spiritual immaterial substance: which is, I humbly conceive, a direct answer to your lordship's question in the beginning of this argument, viz. How we come to be certain that there are spiritual substances, supposing this principle to be true, that the simple ideas by sensation and reflection are the sole matter and foundation of all our reasoning? But this hinders not, but that if God, that infinite, omnipotent, and perfectly immaterial Spirit, should please to give to a system of very subtile matter, sense and motion, it might with propriety of speech be called spirit, though materiality were not excluded out of its complex idea. Your lordship proceeds, It is said indeed elsewhere ||, that it is repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge. But this doth not reach the present case; which is not what matter can do of itself, but what matter prepared by an omnipotent hand can do. And what certainty can we have that he hath not done it? We can have none from the ideas, for those are given up in this case, and consequently we can have no certainty, upon these principles, whether we have any spiritual substance within us or not.

Your lordship in this paragraph proves, that, from what I say, we can have no certainty whether we have any spiritual substance in us or not. If by spiritual substance your lordship means an immaterial substance in us, as you speak, I grant what your lordship says is true, that it cannot upon these principles be demonstrated. But I must crave leave to say at the same time, that upon these principles it can be proved, to the highest degree of probability. If by spiritual substance your lordship means a thinking substance, I must dissent from your lordship, and say, * Eccl. iii. 21. Ch. xxiv. 37. Lib. VI. || B. 4. C. 10. §. 5,

that

that we can have a certainty, upon my principles, that there is a spiritual substance in us. In short, my lord, upon my principles, i. e. from the idea of thinking, we can have a certainty that there is a thinking substance in us; from hence we have a certainty that there is an eternal thinking substance. This thinking substance, which has been from eternity, I have proved to be immaterial. This eternal, immaterial, thinking substance, has put into us a thinking substance, which, whether it be a material or immaterial substance, cannot be infallibly demonstrated from our ideas; though from them it may be proved, that it is to the highest degree probable that it is immaterial.

Again, the bishop of Worcester undertakes to prove from Mr. Locke's principles, that we may be certain, "That the first eternal thinking Be"ing, or omnipotent Spirit cannot, if he would, give to certain systems "of created sensible matter, put together as he sees fit, some degrees of "sense, perception, and thought."

To which Mr. Locke has made the following answer in his third letter. Your first argument I take to be this; that according to me, the know. ledge we have being by our ideas, and our idea of matter in general being a solid substance, and our idea of body a solid extended figured substance; if I admit matter to be capable of thinking, I confound the idea of matter with the idea of a spirit to which I answer, No, no more than I confound the idea of matter with the idea of an horse, when I say that matter in general is a solid extended substance; and that an horse is a material animal, or an extended solid substance with sense and spontaneous motion.

The idea of matter is an extended solid substance; wherever there is such a substance, there is matter, and the essence of matter, whatever other qualities, not contained in that essence, it shall please God to superadd to it. For example, God creates an extended solid substance, without the superadding any thing else to it, and so we may consider it at rest: to some parts of it he superadds motion, but it has still the essence of matter: other parts of it he frames into plants, with all the excellencies of vegeta. tion, life, and beauty, which is to be found in a rose or peach tree, &c. above the essence of matter, in general, but it is still but matter: to other parts he adds sense and spontaneous motion, and those other properties that are to be found in an elephant. Hitherto it is not doubted but the power of God may go, and that the properties of a rose, a peach or an elephant, superadded to matter, change not the properties of matter; but matter is in these things matter still. But if one venture to go one step farther and say, God may give to matter thought, reason, and volition, as well as sense and spontaneous motion, there are men ready presently to limit the power of the omnipotent Creator, and tell us he cannot do it; because it destroys the essence, or changes the essential properties of mat. ter. To make good which assertion, they have no more to say, but that thought and reason are not included in the essence of matter. I grant it; but whatever excellency, not contained in its essence, be superadded to matter, it does not destroy the essence of matter, if it leaves it an extended solid substance, wherever that is, there is the essence of matter: and if every thing of greater perfection, superadded to such a substance, destroys the essence of matter, what will become of the essence of matter in a plant or an animal, whose properties far exceed those of a mere extended solid

substance?

But it is farther urged, that we cannot conceive how matter can think. I grant it; but to argue from thence, that God therefore cannot give to X 4

matter

matter a faculty of thinking, is to say God's omnipotency is limited to a narrow compass, because man's understanding is so; and brings down God's infinite power to the size of our capacities. If God can give no power to any parts of matter, but what men can account for from the essence of matter in general; if all such qualities and properties must destroy the essence, or change the essential properties of matter, which are to our conceptions above it, and we cannot conceive to be the natural conse quence of that essence; it is plain, that the essence of matter is destroyed, and its essential properties changed, in most of the sensible parts of this our system. For it is visible, that all the planets have revolutions about certain remote centres, which I would have any one explain, or make con ceivable by the bare essence, or natural powers depending on the essence of matter in general, without something added to that essence, which we cannot conceive; for the moving of matter in a crooked line, or the attraction of matter by matter, is all that can be said in the case; either of which it is above our reach to derive from the essence of matter or body in general; though one of these two must unavoidably be allowed to be superadded in this instance to the essence of matter in general. The om. nipotent Creator advised not with us in the making of the world, and his ways are not the less excellent, because they are past finding out.

In the next place, the vegetable part of the creation is not doubted to be wholly material; and yet he that will look into it, will observe excellencies and operations in this part of matter, which he will not find contained in the essence of matter in general, nor be able to conceive how they can be produced by it. And will he therefore say, that the essence of matter is destroyed in them, because they have properties and operations not contained in the essential properties of matter as matter, nor explicable by the essence of matter in general?

Let us advance one step farther, and we shall in the animal world meet with yet greater perfections and properties, no ways explicable by the essence of matter in general. If the omnipotent Creator had not superadded to the earth, which produced the irrational animals, qualities for surpassing those of the dull dead earth, out of which they were made, life, sense, and spontaneous motion, nobler qualities than were before in it, it had still remained rude senseless matter; and if to the individuals of each species he had not superadded a power of propagation, the species had perished with those individuals: but by these essences or properties of each species, superadded to the matter which they were made of, the essence or properties of matter in general were not destroyed or changed, any more than any thing that was in the individuals before was destroyed or changed by the power of generation, superadded to them by the first benediction of the Almighty.

In all such cases, the superinducement of greater perfections and nobler qualities destroys nothing of the essence or perfections that were there before: unless there can be showed a manifest repugnancy between them: but all the proof offered for that, is only, that we cannot conceive how matter, without such superadded perfections, can produce such effects; which is, in truth, no more than to say, matter in general, or every part of matter, as matter, has them not; but is no reason to prove, that God, if he pleases, cannot superadd them to some parts of matter, unless it can be proved to be a contradiction, that God should give to some parts of matter qualities and perfections, which matter in general has not; though we cannot conceive how matter is invested with them, or how it operates

by

by virtue of those new endowments; nor is it to be wondered that we cannot, whilst we limit all its operations to those qualities it had before, and would explain them by the known properties of matter in general, without any such induced perfections. For, if this be a right rule of reasoning, to deny a thing to be, because we cannot conceive the manner how it comes to be; I shall desire them who use it to stick to this rule, and see what work it will make both in divinity as well as philosophy: and whether they can advance any thing more in favour of scepticim.

For to keep within the present subject of the power of thinking and self-motion, bestowed by omnipotent power in some parts of matter: the objection to this is, I cannot conceive how matter should think. What is the consequence? Ergo, God cannot give it a power to think. Let this stand for a good reason, and then proceed in other cases by the same. You cannot conceive how matter can attract matter at any distance, much less at the distance of 1,000,000 miles; ergo, God cannot give it such a power: you cannot conceive how matter should feel, or move itself, or affect an immaterial being, or be moved by it; ergo, God cannot give it such powers: which is in effect to deny gravity, and the revolution of the planets about the sun; to make brutes mere machines, without sense or spontaneous motion; and to allow man neither sense nor voluntary motion.

Let us apply this rule one degree farther. You cannot conceive how an extended solid substance should think, therefore God cannot make it think can you conceive how your own soul, or any substance, thinks? You find indeed that you do think, and so do I; but I want to be told how the action of thinking is performed: this, I confess, is beyond my conception; and I would be glad any one, who conceives it, would explain it to me. God, I find, has given me this faculty; and since I cannot but be convinced of his power in this instance, which though I every moment experiment in myself, yet I cannot conceive the manner of; what would it be less than an insolent absurdity, to deny his power in other like cases, only for this reason, because I cannot conceive the manner how?

To explain this matter a little farther: God has created a substance; let it be, for example, a solid extended substance. Is God bound to give it, besides being, a power of action? that, I think, nobody will say: he therefore may leave it in a state of inactivity, and it will be nevertheless a substance; for action is not necessary to the being of any substance that God does create. God has likewise created and made to exist, de novo, an immaterial substance, which will not lose its being of a substance, though God should bestow on it nothing more but this bare being, without giving it any activity at all. Here are now two distinct substances, the one material, the other immaterial, both in a state of perfect inactivity. Now I ask, what power God can give to one of these substances (supposing them to retain the same distinct natures that they had as substances in their state of inactivity) which he cannot give to the other? In that state, it is plain, neither of them thinks; for thinking being an action, it cannot be denied, that God can put an end to any action of any created substance, without annihilating of the substance whereof it is an action; and if it be so, he can also create or give existence to such a substance, without giving that substance any action at all. By the same reason it is plain, that nei ther of them can move itself: now, I would ask, why Omnipotency cannot give to either of these substances, which are equally in a state of per fect inactivity, the same power that it can give to the other? Let it be, for example, that of spontaneous or self-motion, which is a power that it

is

is supposed God can give to an unsolid substance, but denied that he can give to solid substance.

If it be asked, why they limit the omnipotency of God, in reference to the one rather than the other of these substances? all that can be said to it is, that they cannot conceive, how the solid substance should ever be able to move itself. And as little, say I, are they able to conceive, how a created unsolid substance should move itself. But there may be some. thing in an immaterial substance, that you do not know. I grant it; and in a material one too: for example, gravitation of matter towards matter, and in the several proportions observable, inevitably shows, that there is something in matter that we do not understand, unless we can conceive self-motion in matter; or an inexplicable and inconceivable attraction in matter at immense, almost incomprehensible distances: it must therefore be confessed, that there is something in solid, as well as unsolid substances, that we do not understand. But this we know, that they may each of them have their distinct beings, without any activity superadded to them, unless you will deny, that God can take from any being its power of acting, which it is probable will be thought too presumptuous for any one - to do; and I say, it is as hard to conceive self motion in a created immaterial, as in a material being, consider it how you will; and therefore this is no reason to deny Omnipotency to be able to give a power of selfmotion to a material substance, if he pleases, as well as to an immaterial; since neither of them can have it from themselves, nor can we conceive how it can be in either of them.

The same is visible in the other operation of thinking; both these substances may be made, and exist without thought; neither of them has, or can have the power of thinking from itself: God may give it to either of them, according to the good pleasure of his omnipotency; and in which ever of them it is, it is equally beyond our capacity to conceive, how either of these substances thinks. But for that reason, to deny that God, who had power enough to give them both a being out of nothing, can by the same omnipotency give them what other powers and perfections he pleases, has no better foundation than to deny his power of creation, because we cannot conceive how it is performed: and there, at last, this way of reasoning must terminate.

That Omnipotency cannot make a substance to be solid and not solid at the same time, I think with due reverence we may say; but that a solid substance may not have qualities, perfections, and powers, which have no natural or visibly necessary connexion with solidity and extension, is too much for us (who are but of yesterday, and know nothing) to be positive in. If God cannot join things together by connexions inconceivable to us, we must deny even the consistency and being of matter itself; since every particle of it having some bulk, has its parts connected by ways inconceivable to us. So that all the difficulties that are raised against the thinking of matter, from our ignorance, or narrow conceptions, stand not at all in the way of the power of God, if he pleases to ordain it so; nor prove any thing against his having actually endued some parcels of matter, so diposed as he thinks fit, with a faculty of thinking, till it can be shown, that it contains a contradiction to suppose it.

Though to me sensation be comprehended under thinking in general, yet, in the foregoing discourse, I have spoke of sense in brutes, as distinct from thinking; because your lordship, as I remember, speaks of sense in rutes. But here I take liberty to observe, that if your lordship allows

brutes