APPENDIX, NO. 2.

The principal source of objection to Dr. Priestley in England, certainly arose from his being a dissenter; from his opposition to the hierarchy, and to the preposterous alliance, between Church and State: an alliance, by which the contracting parties seem tacitly agreed to support the pretensions of each other, the one to keep the people in religious, and the other in civil bondage. His socinian doctrines in theology, and the heterodoxy of his metaphysical opinions, though they added much to the popular outcry raised against him, were not less obnoxious to the generality of Dissenters, than to the Clergy of the Church of England. Nor is it a slight proof of the integrity of his character, and his boldness in the pursuit of truth, that he did not hesitate to step forward the avowed advocate of opinions, which his intimate and most valuable friends, and the many who looked up to him as the ornament of the dissenting interest, regarded with sentiments of horror,as equally destructive of civil society and true religion.

The extreme difference observable between the apparent properties of animal and inanimate matter, easily led to the opinion of something more as necessary to thought, and the phenomena of mind, than mere juxta position of the elements, whereof our bodies are composed. The very antient opinion also of a state of existence after death, prevalent in the most uncivilized as well as enlightened states of society, confirmed this opinion of a separate and immortal part of the human system: for it was sufficiently evident, that no satisfactory hopes of a futurity after death, could be founded on the perishable basis of the human body. It is only of late days, and from the extension of anatomical and physiological knowledge, that the theory, and the facts of animal organization have been at all understood; and without the conjunction of physiology with metaphysics, the latter would have remained to eternity, as it has continued for ages, a mere collection of sophisms, and a science of grammatical quibbling. The doctrine of a future state, and that of an immaterial and immortal soul, became therefore mutualsupports to each other; and herein the civil power willingly joined in aid of the dogmas of metaphysical theology, from observing the convenience that might arise in the government of civil societies, from inculcating a more complete sanction of rewards and punishments for actions in this life, by means of the dispensations in a life to come. Other causes also gave an universal preponderance to the theory of the human soul. It became, for the reasons above mentioned, not only a favourite doctrine with churchmen and statesmen, but the self delusions among the vulgar, respecting supposed appearances after death, rendered it also apopulardoctrine. Indeed, in every age, and in every country, the priesthood have found it so powerful an engine of influence over the minds of the people, and in too many cases, so, fruitful a source of lucrative imposture, that its prevalence is not to be wondered at, wherever artificial theology has been engrafted on the simplicity of true religion, and supported by an established clergy. Of Popery, which yet remains the prevailing system of the christian world, it is doubtless the corner stone; and even under every form of ignorant and idolatrous worship throughoutthe globe, it is the main source of power and profit to that class of society, which regulates the religious opinions, rites and ceremonies of the country. Not that I would insinuate, that the belief of a separate soul, like some other opinions that might be mentioned, has been generally taught by professors who disbelieve it; for plausible arguments are not wanting, to give it that currency which it has so long received among the wisest and the best of men: nor that an established priesthood of any age or country, or of any religion, is a mere compound of fraud and imposture, for I well know that the wise and the good are abundant in this class of society, as well as in others. But even such men are liable to the common infirmities of human nature; they cannot be indifferent to their rank in society, or the means of their subsistence; it is not every college youth, that is able or willing to weigh “the difficulties and discouragements attending the study of the Scriptures,” so forcibly pointed out in the melancholy pamphlet of Bishop Hare: nor is it every professor of Christianity, who doubts of the doctrines he has undertaken to teach, that has fortitude enough to follow the noble example of TheophilusLindsey, and John Disney. Hence we may take for granted, that those opinions will be admitted the most readily, and enforced the most willingly, which contribute to the influence of that order, which the professors have been induced by choice, or compelled by necessity, to wed for life. Choice indeed, at least that kind of choice, which depends on a well-grounded conviction of the object chosen being the means of superior usefulness, has little to do in this business. For though the clergy of the church of England severally declare that they are moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon them the clerical character, is there one among them in the present day (Bishop Horsely perhaps excepted) who would venture to defend this declaration in the sense originally intended? It is a fact notorious, that the candidates for holy orders, regard the profession of Divinity as they would that of Physic or Law, a fair and reputable means of gaining a livelihood, by performing those duties which are considered as necessary to the well being of society. It is a fact too, equally notorious, that wherever theological opinions (like that of the human soul) have been fit and liable to be made subservient to the temporal profitor influence of the clergy, that use has been so made of them by the ambitious and designing part of the profession, and the rights of the people have been encroached upon, to serve the interest of the Hierarchy. Nor is it the established clergy alone that some of the preceding remarks will apply to: much bigotry among the clergy of the dissenting interest, may fairly be ascribed to similar causes, though by no means operating in the same degree.

But important as this doctrine is to the clerical order in political societies, some latitude of doubt and even of denial, has been conceded in England to the known friends and adherents of the established system in that country. This is the more to be wondered at, as they have generally considered a dissonance of opinion among their own order, more fatal to the common interest, than the attacks of their avowed enemies. Thus, more notice was taken of the Arian heterodoxy of Dr. Clarke, than of the avowed infidelity of Collins, Tindal, Toland, Coward, and other writers of that class, who published about the same period.

The learned Mr. Henry Dodwell as he is usually called, and who is a pregnant instance that learningdoes not always persuade good sense to inhabit the same abode, took great pains to shew that the soul was naturally mortal, but might be immortalized by those who had the gift of conferring on it this precious attribute. This power he ascribed to the Bishops. Dodwell, though he would not at first join the establishment, changed his opinion and his conduct in this respect afterward. Bishop Sherlock denied that the existence of the soul could be made evident from the light of nature. (Disc. 2 p. 86. disc. 3 p. 114) Of the same opinion was Dr. Law who quotes him. Archbishop Tillotson declares (v. 12 serm. 2.) that he cannot find the doctrine of the immortality of the soul expressly delivered in scripture. Dr. Warburton wrote his “Divine legation” to prove that Moses and the Jews neither believed in, nor knew of a future state. Dr. Law, afterward Bishop of Carlisle, in the appendix to the third edition of his “Considerations on the theory of religion,” compleatly overthrows the whole doctrine of a separate soul as founded on the scripture, by a critical examination of every text usually adduced in its support. Dr. Watson the present Bishop of Landaff in the preface to his collection of theological tracts dedicated to young divinesfor whose use it was compiled, expressly declares that the question respecting the materiality or immateriality of the human soul, ranks among those subjects on which theacademicorumεποχη may be admitted, without injuring the foundations of religion. It should seem therefore, that it is not heterodoxy in mere speculative points of theology, that constitutes the sin against the holy Ghost with an established clergy, but heterodoxy on the subject of church authority and the grand alliance. It is in this spirit that the then Archdeacon of St. Albans, Dr. Horsely complains of Dr. Priestley’s history of the corruptions of christianity. “You will easily conjecture (says the Archdeacon in his animadversions on that work p. 5) what has led me to these reflections, is the extraordinary attempt which has lately been made tounsettle the faith and break up the constitution of every ecclesiastical establishment in Christendom. Such is the avowed object of a recent publication which bears the title of a history of the corruptions of christianity, among which the catholic doctrine of the trinity holds a principal place.”

This is an unfortunate exposure of the cloven foot of Hierarchy. It was not the wish to detect error orto establish truth—it was not from anxiety to fix upon a firm footing, some great and leading principle of christianity—it was not the benevolent design of communicating useful information on a litigated topic of speculative theology—it was not the meek and gentle spirit of sincere and patient enquiry that dictated those animadversions—all these motives would not only have borne with patience, but would have welcomed and exulted in a temperate discussion of unsettled opinions, before the tribunal of the public; for by such discussions alone, can the cause of truth be permanently and essentially promoted. No: these were not the motives that influenced the Archdeacon of St. Albans. It was the nefarious and unpardonable attempt to unsettle the faith of established creeds; however founded that faith might be, on ignorance or prejudice, on pardonable misapprehension, or culpable misrepresentation, on fallacy, on falsehood, or on fraud. These “Animadversions,” proceeded from the morbid irritability of an expectant ecclesiastic; from a prudent and a prescient indulgence of theesprit de corps; from a dread too perhaps, lest the tottering structure of church establishment, with all its envied accompaniments of sees andbenefices, of deaconries and archdeaconries, and canonries, and prebendaries, and all the pomp and pride of artificial rank, and all the pleasures of temporal authority, and lucrative sinecure connected with it, might be too rudely shaken by sectarian attacks. But enough for the present, respecting these learned labours of the Archdeacon of St. Albans; which like those of Archdeacon Travis may well be considered as having sufficiently answered themainpurpose of their respective authors, in spite of the wicked replies of Priestley and Porson. Let us say with the public,requiescant in pace.

To return however to the more immediate subject of the present section. Hobbes seems to have been the first writer of repute (in England at least) who denied the doctrine of an immaterial and naturally immortal soul. This was a necessary consequence of his faith being apparently confined to corporeal existence, an opinion deducible in fact from the old maxim of the antients and of the schools,nil unquam fuit in Intellectu, quod non prius erat in Sensu. Hobbes’s Leviathan was published about 1650 or 1651. Spinosa who published after Hobbes was rather an Atheist than a Materialist, a character to whichthough Hobbes’s opinions might lead, he does not assume. In 1678 Blount sent forward to the public his “Anima Mundi”, or an historical narration of the “opinions of the antients concerning man’s soul after this life according to unenlightened nature,” which met with much opposition and some persecution; as was likely, for it is by no means destitute of merit.

In 1702 appeared a book entitled “second thoughts concerning the human soul, demonstrating the notion of a human soul as believed to be a spiritual and immortal substance united to a human, to be an invention of the heathens and not consonant to the principles of philosophy, reason, or religion by E. P. or Estibius Philalethes.” The year following a supplement was published entitled “Farther Thoughts, &c.” The author, Dr. Coward, preoccupies a path subsequently taken by Dr. Law and Dr. Priestley, and endeavours to shew at length that the notion of an immaterial, immortal soul, is not countenanced by the texts of scripture usually adduced in favour of that opinion. These texts he criticises individually with a reference to the original words used. The author appears inthe character of a sincere Christian. A second edition of this book was published 1704. In 1706 Mr. Dodwell before mentioned, a learned and laborious but weak man, and bigotted to the hierarchy, published his “Epistolary discourse proving from the scriptures and the first fathers that the soul is a principle naturally mortal, but immortalized actually by the pleasure of God, to punishment or reward; by its union with the divine baptismal spirit. Wherein is proved that none have the power of giving this divine immortalizing spirit since the apostles, but only the bishops.” This gave rise to the controversy between Clarke and Collins on the immortality of the soul. Dodwell’s book was attacked by Chishull, Norris and Clarke. He replied in three several publications, 1st. “A preliminary defence of the epistolary discourse concerning the distinction between soul and spirit, 1707. 2nd. The scripture account of the eternal rewards or punishments of all that hear of the gospel, without an immortality necessarily resulting from the nature of souls themselves that are concerned in those rewards and punishments, 1703. 3d. The natural mortality of human souls clearly demonstratedfrom the holy scriptures and the concurrent testimonies of the primitive writers.” 1708.

About this time Toland in his letters to Serena, (1704) gives an “Essay on the history of the soul’s immortality among the Heathens,” deducing that doctrine from popular traditions supported by poetical fictions, and at length adopted and defended among the philosophers. Concluding from hence, (preface) that divine authority was the surest anchor of our hope and the best if not the only demonstration of the soul’s immortality; an indirect denial of the whole doctrine as coming from Toland, who was certainly no friend to christianity and no believer in the divine authority of the scriptures.

In the same year (1704) but somewhat previous to Toland, Dr. Coward had published his “Grand Essay, or a vindication of reason and religion against impostures of philosophy; proving according to those ideas and conceptions of things human understanding is capable of forming itself. 1st. That the existence of an immaterial substance is a philosophic imposture and impossible to be conceived. 2ndly That all matter has originally created in it, a principle of internal or self motion.3rdly That matter and motion must be the foundation of thought in men and brutes.” Dodwell and Toland had learning enough and so had Blount to throw some light on the history of this question, and the author of second thoughts has many observations well adapted to the question he discusses, but very little is to be gained from a perusal of Coward’s book.

Dr. Hartley’s great work, (great, not from the bulk, but the importance of it) was first published in 1749. The direct and manifest tendency of the whole of his first volume is to destroy the common hypothesis of an immaterial soul: and this he does with a mass of fact and a force of reasoning irresistible. He shews clearly how all the faculties ascribed to the soul, thought, reflection, judgement, memory, and all the passions selfish and benevolent, may be resolved into one simple undeniable law of animal organization, without the necessity of any hypothesis such as that of a separate soul. Yet he does not appear distinctly to have seen the full weight and tendency of his own reasoning, and he adopts a theory on the subject, loaded with more difficulties and absurdities, than even the common hypothesis.

In 1757 was published a philosophical and scriptural inquiry into the nature and constitution “of mankind considered only as rational beings, wherein the antient opinion asserting the human soul to be an immaterial, immortal and thinking substance is found to be quite false and erroneous, and the true nature state and manner of existence of the power of thinking in mankind is evidently demonstrated by reason and the sacred scriptures.” Author J. R. M. I. Who this author really was I know not. But from the perusal of his book it is probable that he was a physician, and had been travelling. The above work he terms the philosophic or first part, and refers to a longer work of his own in manuscript which it seems he could not procure to be published. There is very little new in the book so far as I could judge.

I do not recollect any other treatise relating to the subject that excited public attention in England. In France and Holland La Mettrie began the controversy by his Histoire naturelle de L’Ame, published at the Hague in 1745 as a translation from the English of Mr. Charp;[66]it is a book containingmany forcible remarks, and did credit to the side of the question which La Mettrie had adopted. Soon after this La Mettrie published L’Homme machine which was burnt in Holland in 1748. This was an honour not due to the formidable character of the work itself, which though it contains some of the common arguments drawn from the physiology and pathology of the human system, is by no means of first rate merit. He whimsically attributes the fierceness of the English, to their eating their meat more raw than other nations. This book was translated and published in London in 1750.

[66]This is probably one of the innumerable instances of the carelessness of French authors in quoting English names. La Mettrie most likely meant to ascribe this to Mr. Sharp the Surgeon, with whose reputation he must have been acquainted. I remember Arthur Young Esq. in one of his annals of agriculture complains that a paper of his translated into French was given to Artor Jionge ecuier. Some years ago Mr. Charles Taylor of Manchester (lately secretary to the society of Arts in London) was requested by Lord Hawkesbury to make some experiments to ascertain the value of East India Indigo when compared with the Spanish. Mr. Taylor did ascertain that the former yielded more colour for the same money at the current prices than the latter by above one fourth. In a paper I believe by M. D’Ijonval these experiments are quoted in a note as made by Le Chevalier Charles Tadkos celebre manufacturier de Manchester.

From Mr. Hallet’s discoveries the last volume of which was published in 1736 Dr. Priestley has extracted for himself and quoted what he deemed necessary on this question. I do not notice as part of the history of the question Materialism in England, the foreign atheistical publications, such asLe Systeme de la natureattributed to Mirabeau the father,Le vrai sens du Systeme de l’universa posthumous work ascribed to Helvetius,Le Bon Sensby Meslier, and others whose titles do not now occur to me, because until within these few years, they were hardly known in England, and excited no discussion of the subject there, previous to the work of Dr. Priestley now under consideration.

The Doctor himself says in his preface to the disquisitions on matter and spirit, first published in 1777, that though he had entertained occasional doubts on the intimate union of two substances, so entirely heterogeneous as the Soul and the Body, the objections to the common hypothesis, did not impressively occur to him, until the publication of his treatise against the Scotch Doctors, which was in 1774. Those doubts indeed could hardly avoid occurring to any person who had carefully perusedHartley’s Essay on Man, first published in 1749, and Dr. Law’s appendix before mentioned in 1755.

Dr. Hartley has shewn with a weight of fact and argument amounting to demonstration, that all the phenomena of mind, may be accounted for from the known properties and laws of animal organization; and notwithstanding, that for some reason or other he has so far accommodated his work to vulgar prejudice, as to adopt the theory of a separate Soul, though in a very objectionable form, it is evidently a clog upon his system, and unnecessary to any part of his reasoning. SubstitutePerception, and his theory is compleat. Nor indeed is it possible to reject this. Constant concomitance is the sole foundation on which we build out; inference of necessary connection: we havenoevidence of the latter, but the former. Perception manifestly arises from, and accompanies animal organization; the facts are of perpetual occurrence, and the proof from induction is compleat.

Hartley having laid a sufficient foundation to conclude (as Dr. Priestley has done) that the natural appearances of the human system might be fully explained by means of Perception and Association,without the redundant introduction of the common hypothesis, Dr. Law a few years afterward compleatly proved to the christian world that though Life and Immortality were brought to light by the christian dispensation, the common theory of a separate immaterial and immortal soul, was not necessary to, or countenanced by the christian doctrine. Dr. Law seems by his preface, to have been fearful of the consequences of expressing the whole of his opinion on this abstruse subject, and confines himself in his appendix to the examination of the passages of Scripture usually referred to in favour of the Soul’s immortality. This appendix I believe was first added to thethirdedition of his Considerations on the Theory of Religion, published in 1755.

Against Dr. Priestley, any ground of popular obloquy would be eagerly laid hold of by the Bigots of the day. The doubts expressed in the examination of Drs. Reid, Oswald, and Beattie, excited so much obloquy, as to render it necessary for Dr. Priestley to review his opinions, and renounce or defend them. The result was, the disquisition on matter and spirit, the first volume containing a discussion of the question of materialism, the second that of liberty and necessity.

In discussing the former hypothesis, Dr. Priestley denies not only the existence of spirit as having no relation to extension or space, but also the common definition of matter, as a substance possessing only the inert properties of extension, and solidity or impenetrability. The latter he defines in conformity with the more accurate observations of later physics, a substance possessing the property of extension and the active powers of attraction and repulsion. With Boscovich and Mr. Michell, he admits of the penetrability of matter, and replies to the objections that may be drawn from this view of the subject.

It must be acknowledged that highly curious as this preliminary disquisition is, it is not only unnecessary to the main argument, but leaves the definition of matter open to the question whether there be any substratum or subject in which the essential properties or powers of attracting and repelling inhere. That these powers really belong to matter, whatever else matter may be, is evident from the reflection of light, previous to contact with the reflecting substance and its inflection afterward from the electric spark, visible along a suspended chain,from the phenomena of the metallic pyrometers, from the rain drop on a cabbage leaf, &c. And that matter is permeable, at least to light, is sufficiently evident from every case of tranparency. Still however it cannot consist of properties alone; a property must be the property of something. But the proper and direct train of argument in favour of materialism is, that every phenomenon from which the notion of a soul is deduced, is resolveable into some affection of the brain, perceived. That all thought, reflection, choice, judgment, memory, the passions and affections, &c. consist only of ideas or sensations,(i. e. motions within that organ) perceived at the time. Though, judgment, memory, being words, denoting different kinds of internal perceptions, relating only to, and consisting of, ideas and sensations.[67]That sensations and ideas themselves,arise only in consequence of the impressions of external objects on our senses, which impressions are liable to be recalled afterward by the recurrence of others with which they were originally associated, agreeably to the necessary and inevitable law of the animal system. That this is evident in as much as there can be no ideas peculiar to any of the senses where there is a want of the necessary bodily organ, as of hearing, sight, &c. inasmuch as all these ideas commence with the body, grow with its growth, and decrease with its decline. That they can be suspended, altered, destroyed, by artificial means, by accident, by disease. That all these properties of mind, viz. thought, judgment, memory, passions, and affections, are as evident in brutes as in men; and though the degree be different, it is always accompanied with a proportionate difference of organization. That perception is clearly the result of organization, being always found with it, and never without it: as clearly so in other animalsas in the human species; and probably in vegetables though in a still lower degree.[68]That as all the common phenomena of mind, can be accounted for from the known facts of organized matter without the souls, and as none of them can possibly be attributed to the soul without the body, there is no necessity to recur to any gratuitous theory in addition to the visible corporeal frame. That the doctrine of the soul originated in ignorance, and has been supported by imposture; that it involves gross contradictions and insuperable difficulties, and is no more countenanced by true religion than by true philosophy.

[67]ASensationis an impression made by some external object on the Senses; the motion thus excited is propagated along the appropriate nerve, until it reaches the Sensory in the Brain, and it is there and there only, felt orperceived.AnIdea, is a motion in the Brain, excited there either by the laws of association to which that organ is subject, or by some accidental state of the system in general, or that organ in particular, without the intervention of an impression on the Senses ab extra as the cause of it. Such a motion being similar to a sensation formerly excited, and being also felt or perceived is the correspondentIdea.

AnIdea, is a motion in the Brain, excited there either by the laws of association to which that organ is subject, or by some accidental state of the system in general, or that organ in particular, without the intervention of an impression on the Senses ab extra as the cause of it. Such a motion being similar to a sensation formerly excited, and being also felt or perceived is the correspondentIdea.

[68]Dr. Percival, Dr. Bell in the Manchester Transactions, and Dr. Watson in the last volume of his essays, have made this opinion highly probable. Many additional observations are to be found in Dr. Darwin’s works. I consider it as a theory established.

All this has been shewn with great force of argument and ingenuity by Dr. Priestley in these disquisitions, to which it may safely be affirmed nothing like a satisfactory answer has yet been given, or is ever likely to be given. True metaphysics, like every other branch of philosophy can only be foundedon an accurate observation of facts, and as these become gradually substituted for mere names, our real knowledge will improve. It is to physiology perhaps that the question of the materiality of the human soul, and even that of liberty and necessity will owe the compleatest elucidation. Until medical writers brought into view thefactsrelating to animal life, the metaphysical disquisitions on these subjects were involved in an endless confusion of words without precise meaning, and almost always including in their definition apetitio principii. Indeed we are not yet fully apprized either in Law, Physic or Divinity any more than in Metaphysics, that thespecies intelligibilesof the old schoolmen, and the whole class of abstract ideas of the new schoolmen with Locke at their head, are not things, but names. They are not even either sensations or ideas; they are words, convenient indeed for classification, and used artificially like the signs of Algebra, but they have no archetype. This is a subject which will probably be better understood ere long by the labours of Mr. Horne Tooke.

Dr. Priestley therefore considered the question of a future state, as now rested on the basis which toa christian is or ought to be perfectly satisfactory; on the promises and declarations of our Saviour, exemplified by his own resurrection from the dead. Indeed the circumstances of the whole question of futurity depending on the truth of the christian scriptures and on them alone, is calculated to give them a peculiar and inestimable value in the eyes of those who look forward with anxious hope[69]to a continuedand more perfect state of existence after death. Nor is it of any consequence to the christian, that the manner how this will be effected is not plainly revealed; for it is sufficient that the Being who first gave animation to the human frame, will at his own time and in his own manner for the wisest and best of purposes, again exert the same act of almighty power in favour of the human race, and in fulfillment of his promise through Jesus Christ. Such at leastwas the view of the subject habitually entertained by our author.

[69]There are some persons who do not seem to entertain this anxious hope. Mr. Gray the poet seems an instance, from the following passage in his ode Barbaras Ædes aditure mecum (Letters V. 2 p. 44) though I do not recollect that the sentiment has been noticed before.Oh ego felix, vice si (nec unquamSurgerem rursus) simili cadentemParca me lenis sineret quietoFallere Letho.Multa flagranti radiisque cinctoIntegris, ah quam nihil inviderem,Cum Dei ardentes medius quadrigasSentit Olympus!I wonder whether Gray ever perused the following lines written by his friend and Biographer the Revd: Mr. Mason.‘Is this theBigot’srant? Away ye vain!’Your hopes your fears, in doubt, in dulness steep!Go sooth your souls in sickness, grief, or pain,With the sad solace of,eternal sleep.Yet know ye Sceptics, know, the Almighty mindWho breath’d on man a portion of his fire,Bad his free soul by earth nor time confin’dTo heav’n, to immortality aspire.Nor shall the pile of hope his mercy rear’d,By vain philosophy be e’er destroy’d;Eternity! by all or wish’d or fear’d,Shall be by all, or suffer’d or enjoy’d.Mason.It is still more singular that Dr. Beattie with all his professions of christianity, should not have been aware of the atheistical complexion of the following passage in his “Hermit.”Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn,Kind nature the embryo blossom shall save;But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!Oh, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

Oh ego felix, vice si (nec unquamSurgerem rursus) simili cadentemParca me lenis sineret quietoFallere Letho.Multa flagranti radiisque cinctoIntegris, ah quam nihil inviderem,Cum Dei ardentes medius quadrigasSentit Olympus!

Oh ego felix, vice si (nec unquam

Surgerem rursus) simili cadentem

Parca me lenis sineret quieto

Fallere Letho.

Multa flagranti radiisque cincto

Integris, ah quam nihil inviderem,

Cum Dei ardentes medius quadrigas

Sentit Olympus!

I wonder whether Gray ever perused the following lines written by his friend and Biographer the Revd: Mr. Mason.

‘Is this theBigot’srant? Away ye vain!’Your hopes your fears, in doubt, in dulness steep!Go sooth your souls in sickness, grief, or pain,With the sad solace of,eternal sleep.Yet know ye Sceptics, know, the Almighty mindWho breath’d on man a portion of his fire,Bad his free soul by earth nor time confin’dTo heav’n, to immortality aspire.Nor shall the pile of hope his mercy rear’d,By vain philosophy be e’er destroy’d;Eternity! by all or wish’d or fear’d,Shall be by all, or suffer’d or enjoy’d.

‘Is this theBigot’srant? Away ye vain!’

Your hopes your fears, in doubt, in dulness steep!

Go sooth your souls in sickness, grief, or pain,

With the sad solace of,eternal sleep.

Yet know ye Sceptics, know, the Almighty mind

Who breath’d on man a portion of his fire,

Bad his free soul by earth nor time confin’d

To heav’n, to immortality aspire.

Nor shall the pile of hope his mercy rear’d,

By vain philosophy be e’er destroy’d;

Eternity! by all or wish’d or fear’d,

Shall be by all, or suffer’d or enjoy’d.

Mason.

It is still more singular that Dr. Beattie with all his professions of christianity, should not have been aware of the atheistical complexion of the following passage in his “Hermit.”

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn,Kind nature the embryo blossom shall save;But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!Oh, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn,

Kind nature the embryo blossom shall save;

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!

Oh, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

Indeed, the natural evidences of a future state were never conceived by any reasonable defender of the doctrine, to be of themselves satisfactory and conclusive.[70]They were never deemed of more value than to produce aprobable expectationof a state of future rewards and punishments, and they are certainly contradicted by the known facts relating to the origin, the growth, and decline of the human faculties. Bishop Porteus has collected these arguments, and stated them with as much force as his moderate abilities would permit; but by far the best summary of what has been urged on this as well as on almost every important question of morals and metaphysics, will be found in Mr. Belsham’s Elements of the Philosophy of Mind. An excellent compendium, by a gentleman, to whom next to Mr. Lindsey, Dr.Priestley appears to have been more attached than to any other.

[70]Dr. Priestley in his observations on the increase of infidelity published at Northumberland, has a passage which would seem to intimate that a future state might be clearly made out by the light of nature (p. 59, 60) but this is certainly inadvertency, and by no means conformable to his constant, deliberate, sentiments on that subject as expressed particularly in his Institutes.

TheSECONDpart of the Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit, contains a discussion of the long contested and confused question of Liberty and Necessity.

Dr. Priestley is right in his opinion that this question was not understood by the ancients, nor perhaps before the time of Hobbes: Long ago it appeared to me, that the only writer among the schoolmen who had touched upon it, was Bradwardine in his Book De causà Dei, which I regret that I have no opportunity of consulting here. Many of his observations are extracted by Toplady in his treatise on Liberty and Necessity, and in his life of Zanchius; but Toplady like Edwards, did not completely understand the question; they connected the doctrine of necessity with all the bigotry of Calvinism.

Hobbes in his Leviathan, and in his reply to Bramhall on liberty and necessity in his Tripos, first truly stated the subject, and shewed that the question was, not whether we can do what we will, but whether the will itself, (i. e. choice, preference, inclination, desire, aversion,) is not inevitably determined by motives not in the power or controul of the agent.

Hartley’s book, however, shews, or rather leads to the conclusion, that these motives are twofold,ab extraandab intra. The action depending on the compound force of the motives ab extra, and the physical state of the animal organs at the moment. For the latter is frequently of itself an immediate cause of voluntary action.

But previous to Dr. Hartley’s great work, the question of liberty and necessity had been discussed between Collins and Clark, and Clark and Leibnitz.[71]Collins’s Philosophical inquiry into human liberty, first published in 1715 was the only book on the subject worth reading between the times of Hobbes and Hartley, and a masterly and decisive work it is. This appears to have been translated and repeatedly printed on the continent; Dr. Priestley, who republished it in London, mentioning a second edition in 1756 at Paris, and a third edition when he wasthere in 1774. The controversy was kept alive in Collins’s life time by Leibnitz; but he like Dr. Edwards who afterwards wrote in defence of the same side of the question in his treatise on Free will, was too much given to expand his ideas, and obscure the sense by the multiplicity of words which he used to express it. The letters of Theodicèe contain many passages well conceived, but the book is insupportably tedious. Hobbes could condense more argument and information in a page, than would serve Leibnitz for a volume.

[71]I do not find that the controversy about the Soul occasioned by the publications of Blount, Coward, Dodwell, &c. involved the question of Liberty and Necessity, though they touch so nearly. It escaped me a few pages back, that Dr. Coward, was also the author of “Second Thoughts concerning the human Soul.” (Estibius Psycalethes) as well as of the Grand Essay.

To this treatise of Collins, plainly and popularly written, no sufficient answer was or could be given. It must have satisfied the mind of every reader capable of understanding the question, though it omitted to notice many objections which were afterwards taken up and fully answered by Dr. Priestley. Collins in his preface takes pains to have it understood that he writes in defence ofmoralnecessity only, and not ofphysicalnecessity. A distinction without a difference, though taken by all who have succeeded him.

I do not dwell on the controversy between Jackson on the one side in defence of human liberty, andGordon and Trenchard in Cato’s letters, because little was added to the sum of knowledge, on either side. Jackson had learning and industry, but he did not understand the question, and had no pretensions to that species of distinguishing acuteness, so necessary to a good metaphysician.

Dr. Priestley, following the enlarged and cheering views of the future happiness of all mankind, first connected by Hartley with this question, shews completely that the doctrine under consideration has nothing to do with the strict calvinistic hypothesis. That it is sufficiently conformable to popular opinion. That it is the only practical doctrine which in fact is, or indeed can be acted upon with respect to the application of reasoning and argument, reward and punishment. That the formation of character and disposition, the actual inferences we make from, and the dependence we place upon them, rest entirely on the truth of this opinion. That from the nature of cause and effect, every volition must be the necessary result of previous circumstances. That thescientia contingentium, the great and insuperable difficulty of God’s pretended foreknowledge of uncertain events, can on no other hypothesis be avoided, and that thedoctrine of necessity is perfectly consistent with the great plan of divine benevolence, in the present state, and future destination, of the human race.

These subjects called forth remarks by Dr. Price, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Bryant, Dr. Kenrick, Mr. Whitehead, Dr. Horseley and others; to all of whom, answers were given by Dr. Priestley.

The controversy with Dr. Price is a pleasing specimen of the manner in which an important subject can be amicably discussed between two friends, and made interesting too, by the manner as well as the matter, without any thing of that “seasoning of controversy” which Dr. Horsely afterward thought so necessary to keep alive the public attention, and which he strews over his polemics with so unsparing a hand. The Bishop had not yet however adopted that stile of arrogance by which he has since been so disgracefully distinguished; and it is to be regretted for the sake of his own character as a gentleman and as a writer, that he adopted it at all. Dr. Horsely should recollect, that those who emulate the insolence of Warburton ought at least to give proofs of equal learning and acuteness; and that bigotry and intolerance in defence of opinions which, though a man mayprofess to believe, he can hardly profess to understand, will do no credit to his religious, his moral, or his literary character in the present state of knowledge. But character as a writer, may be a secondary consideration, to one who is determined to verify the saying, that godliness is great gain.[72]

[72]Dr. Horseley’s polemic strictures on Dr. Priestley’s writings, exhibit a singular compound of insolence and absurdity. But he is contented, I presume, if he rises in the church, as he sinks in reputation. Some of his opinions are truly diverting. His theory of divine generation by the Father contemplating his own perfections, and his grave suggestion of the three persons of the Godhead meeting together in consultation, stand a fair chance of being noticed by some wicked wit, who may wish to expose the infirmities of orthodoxy real or pretended.

It has been a misfortune to this question, that it has seldom been treated by persons who knew any thing of the organization or physiology of the human frame; and that it has been complicated with all the prejudice arising from the theological tenets of those who opposed the doctrine of necessity. Every physician knows, though metaphysicians know little about it, that the laws which govern the animal machine, are as certain and invariable as those which guide the planetary system, and are as little within thecontroul of the human being who is subject to them. Every sensation therefore, and every idea dependent on, or resulting from the state of the sensory, is the necessary effect of the laws of organization by which that state was produced. But we neither have nor can have any sensation or any idea, but what is so dependent, or but what thus results; for we can neither feel nor think without the brain. The words we use for the Phenomena termed mental, are mere terms of classification and arrangement of the sensations and ideas thus produced, and their combinations. Hence it follows, that all these phenomena depend on the laws which regulate the animal system, and are the necessary, inevitable result of those laws. The obscurity which has enveloped this question, has arisen from want of due attention to that state of mind (or rather of body) which we call, the will; and from the power that animals seem to have over the voluntary muscles. But every Physiologist knows that the state of the system which calls into action the voluntary muscles, that is, a state of want, desire or inclination, whether to act or to abstain, is the result of previous circumstances to which the animal is exposed; and the action of the voluntary muscles, is equallythe result of necessary laws, as those of the involuntary.

The great object of terror to the Divines in this question about Necessity, was the consequence resulting, that God is the author of Sin. Many and subtile were the distinctions made upon this subject by the necessarian theologists among the schoolmen, and down to the middle of the seventeenth century. Richard Baxter the peace-maker, in his Christian Directory, his Catholic Theologie and some other works, has briefly reviewed them all, and as usual distinguished upon them so acutely, that what was not quite clear before, he has most effectually obscured. The prevailing opinion, however, seems to have been, not that God permitted the sinful act (for the reply was unanswerable, that God must be considered, as willing that which he does not prevent when he can,) but that God, in the common course of nature as pre-ordained by him, permitted the action itself to come to pass, but not the intention or quo animo of the actor, in which the sin consists; or as Gale expresses it in the quaint language of the time, it is “God’s pre-determinate concurse to the entitative act.”

Indeed, I do not see with the orthodox notions then prevalent, how it was possible on the hypothesis of God’s foreknowing and pre-ordaining all that comes to pass, to avoid considering God Almighty as the author of Sin; and to feel repugnance toward a system, which makes the deity inflict eternal punishment on a creature, whose actions he might have controuled, and whose existence he could have prevented. Such manifest injustice might be viewed without horror, by the brutal bigotry of Calvin, but the tenets that drew after them such a consequence, could not be adopted without hesitation and regret, by any, but the most thorough going, unfeeling zealot.

Origen’sdoctrine of Universal Restitution, was first advanced in England (so far as I know) by Rust, Bishop of Dromore, and Jeremy White, who I believe had been Chaplain to Cromwell. Since that, the labours of Stonehouse, Petitpierre, Newton, Winchester, Chauncey and Simpson, have furnished ground enough for us to adopt it as the doctrine of scripture as well as of common sense. By connecting this doctrine with that of necessity, Dr. Hartley and Dr. Priestley have been enabled to give a full and satisfactoryreply to all the objections that can be drawn from the theory of necessity, making God the author of Sin. Indeed, unless God’s foreknowledge be denied, the same difficulty must occur on either scheme: for he has knowingly and voluntarily adopted a system, in which the existence of evil if not necessary, is at least undeniable.

Granting the goodness of God, it follows according to Dr. Priestley, that he has adopted that system which is most conducive to general, and individual happiness upon the whole; and that the moral evil of which for the best purposes he has permitted human creatures to be guilty, and the physical evil, which here or hereafter will be the inevitable consequence of that conduct, are necessary to produce the greatest sum of good to the system at large, and to each human being individually, considering the situation in which he has been necessarily placed in respect to the whole system. Indeed, moral evil is of no farther consequence than as it produces physical evil to the agent, or to others. And as we see in the system of inanimate nature, that general good is the result of partial and temporary evil, and that though the one follows necessarily from general laws as the resultof the other, the good manifestly predominates, so in the moral system, we have a right from analogy to predict, that good will be the ultimate result of the apparent evil we observe in it: that we shall be the wiser for knowing what is to be avoided; the better for corrected dispositions; and that the power, and the wish to receive and communicate happiness, will be enlarged through each successive stage of our existence, by the experience of those that have preceded. So at least thought Dr. Priestley.

Leibnitz states some of these ideas with great force in the following passage, which I am tempted to transcribe entire from hisEssais de Theodicèe; sur la Bontè de Dieu, la libertè de l’homme, et l’origine du mal, first published in 1710. (Prem. partie Sec. 7, 8, 9.)[73]

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