to death, as a facrifice for fin; yet he died voluntarily, and therefore freely. Elfe, he would not have affirmed, that he was even ftraightened, until it was accomplished *: i. e. he wifhed, and longed, for the confummation of his obedience unto death.

Need I add any thing more, to prove that freedom and neceffity are not only compatible, but may even co-alefce into abfolute unifons, with each other?

But, "how do they thus coalefce ?"-By the wife appointment of God, who is great in counfel, and mighty in working. A Chriftian will be fatisfied with this anfwer. And philofophy itself cannot rise to an higher.

CHA P. II.

The Neceffity of Human Volitions proved, from the Nature of the Connection fubfifting between Soul and Body.

MR.

R. Wefley afks, 3. "Is man felf-determined, in acting; or is he determined by fome other being?"-I fcruple not, to declare, as my ftedfast judgment, that no man ever was, or ever will, or ever can be, ftrictly and philofophically speaking, felf-determined to any one action, be that action what it may.

Let us examine this point. It is neither unimportant, nor unentertaining.

have happened; is to annihilate, at one ftroke, the whole dignity and importance of the Chriftian religion. Scripture is, therefore, extremely careful to inculcate, again, and again, in the strongest and moft explicit terms which language can fupply, that the whole of Chrift's humiliation, even his death itself, was infallibly and inevitably decreed. See, among many other paffages, those which occur in the 4th chapter of this Effay. + Jer. xxxii. 19.

* Luke xii. 50.

There

*

There is no medium between matter and fpirit. Thefe two divide the whole univerfe between them. Even in man's prefent complex ftate, though body and foul conftitute one compofitum; yet are the two component principles not only diftinct, but effentially different, from each other. Their connection, though astonishingly intimate, occafions no mixture nor confufion of this with that.

Notwithstanding which, the nature (or, if you please, the law) of their junction is fuch, that they reciprocally act upon each other. A man breaks a limb or is wounded in a duel. The body, and the body alone, receives the injury: but the injury is no fooner received, than it operates upon the foul. For it is the foul only, which feels pleafure or pain, through the medium of the bodily organs. Matter can no more feel, or perceive; than it can read, or pray. To fuppofe otherwife, were to fuppofe that a violin can hear, and a telescope fee.

If, therefore, the foul is the feeling principle, or fole feat of perception; it follows, as clear as day, that the foul is no lefs dependent on the body, for a very confiderable portion of its [i. e. of the foul's own] phyfical happinefs or mifery; than the body is dependent on the foul, for its [i. e. for the body's] inftrumental fubferviency to the will. Confequently, the foul is (not felf-determined, but) ncceffarily determined, to take as much care of the body as it [the foul] in its prefent views deems requifite: because the foul is confcious of its dependence on that machine, as the inlet and channel of pleafing or of difagreeable fenfations. So that, in this very extensive inftance, man's volitions are fwayed, this way or that, to the right hand or to the left; by confiderations, drawn from the circumftance of that neceflary

* I am obliged, here, to take thefe two particulars for granted: as the adhibition of the abundant proofs, by which they are fupported and evinced, would lead me too far from the object immediately in view.

dependence

dependence on the body, which the foul cannot poffibly raise itself fuperior to, while the mutual connection subsists.

An idea is that image, form, or conception of any thing, which the foul is 'impreffed with from without *. How come we by thefe ideas? I believe them to be, all, originally, let in, through the bodily fenfes only. I cannot confider reflection as, properly, the fource of any new ideas: but rather as a fort of mental chemistry, by which the understanding contemplatively analyfes and fublimates, into abstract and refined knowledge, fome of those ideas which refult either from experience, or from information; and which were primarily admitted through the avenues of sense. Without the fense of hearing, we could have had no juft idea of found: nor of odours, without the fenfe of fmelling: any more than the foot can tafte, or the hand can hear.

The fenfes themselves, which are thus the only doors, by which ideas, i. e. the rudiments of all knowledge, find their way to the foul; are, literally and in the fulleft import of the word, corporeal. Hence, the foul cannot fee, if the eyes are deftroyed: nor feel, if the nervous functions are fufpended: nor

Are not the powers of fancy an exception to that doctrine which maintains, that all ideas originally accede, ab extra, to the mind? -Not in the least, Though 1 may form (for inftance) an uncertain, or at beft an incomplete, idea of a perfon I never faw; yet that idea is either drawn from defcription, or, if purely imaginary, is a combination of conceptions, every one of which came at first into the mind through the fenfes, and which it affociates on principles of real or fuppofed fimilitude.

+ The reader will obferve, that I am, here, fpeaking of no other than of natural and artificial knowledge. Spiritual knowledge, divinely impressed on the foul in its regeneration by the Holy Ghoft, comes not, hitherto, within the compafs of the prefent difquifition. Though to me, it feems extremely probable, that this moft adorable agent often condefcends to make the fenfes themselves (and efpecially the fenfe of feeling; to which fingle fenfe, by the way, all the other four may, fub diverfo modo, be reduced) the inlets of his bleffed influence. There is a fpirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. Job xxxii. 8.

hear,

hear, if the organs of that fenfe are totally impaired. What learn we from this? That the foul, or mind, is primarily and immediately indebted to the body, for all the ideas, (and confequently, for all the knowledge) with which it is furnished. By thefe ideas, when compared, combined, or feparated, the foul, on every occafion, neceffarily regulates its conduct: and is afterwards as dependent on the body for carrying its conceptions into outward act, as it was for its fimple reception of them at first.

Thus, the foul is, in a very extenfive degree, paffive as matter itself.

Whether the fibres of the brain do no more than fimply vibrate; or whether they be alfo the canals of a vital fluid agitated and fet in circulation, by the percuffions which it receives from the fenfes; the argument comes to just the fame point. The fenfes are neceffarily impreffed by every object from without; and as neceffarily commove the fibres of the brain from which nervous commotion, ideas are neceffarily communicated to, or excited in, the foul; and, by the judgment which the foul neceffarily frames of thofe ideas, the will is neceffarily inclined to approve or disapprove, to act or not to act. If fo, where is the boafted power of felf-determination?

Having taken a momentary furvey of the foul's dependance on the body; and of the vaft command which the body has over the foul (fo great, that a disease may quickly degrade a philofopher into an and even an alteration of weather diffufe a

idiot;

temporary

Lord Chesterfield's remark is not ill founded. "I am convinced, that a light fupper, a good night's fleep, and a fine morning, have, fometimes, made an hero, of the fame man, who, by an indigeftion, a reftlefs night, and a rainy morning, would have been a coward." Letter 117-Again: "Thofe who fee and obferve kings, heroes, and ftatefmen, difcover that they have head-achs, indigeftions, humours, and paffions, just like other people: every one of which, in their turns, determine their wills, in defiance of their reafon." Letter 173.-Human excellence, truly, has much to be proud VOL. VI (29.)

C

of!

temporary ftupor through all the powers of the mind); let us next enquire, on what the body itself depends,

of! and man is a fovereign, felf-determining animal! an animal, whom too rarified or too vifcous a texture, too rapid or too languid a circulation, of blood; an imperfect fecretion of fpirits, from the blood, through the cortical ftrainers of the brain; or an irregular diftribution of the fpiritous fluid, from the fecreting fibres, to the nervous canals which diffuse themfelves through the body:-thefe, and a thousand other involuntary caufes, can, at any time, in lefs than a moment, if God please, fufpend every one of our fenfations; ftagnate us into ftupidity'; agitate us into a fever; or deprive us of life itfelf!

Yet, let it be observed, that thought and reafon are, at all times and amidst all circumstances whatever, effentially infeparable from the foul whether it dwell in a well-organized and duly-tempered body, or in a body whofe conftruction is ever fo unfavourable, and whofe mechanic balance is ever fo broken and impaired. But in the latter cafe (efpecially in fwoons, epilepfies, &c.) the foul cannot unfold and exercife its faculties, as when the material machine is in right order. Thus, we cannot fay, with metaphyfical propriety, that a perfon in a fainting-fit, or that even the moft abfolute idiot on earth, is an irrational being: but only, that he has not the fervice of his reafon. Nor can we fay, of a madman, that he has loft his understanding: but only, that the proper ufe, or direction, of it, is perverted.

It is true, indeed, that, as idiotcy feems to be rather a quid deficiens, than a to pofitivum; and may therefore be immediately occafioned by the bad mechanism (i. e. by a vitiated arrangement and mation) of the corporeal particles, whether fluid or folid:-So, on the other hand, madnels feeins to have more in it of the rapofitivum; and, confequently, to be the effect of an higher and more abfolute caufe. What can that caufe be? I am strongly and clearly of opinion, with Mr. Baxter (not Baxter the puritan, but Baxter the great modern philofopher), that all madnefs whatever proceeds from the powerful and continued agency of fome fepárate fpirit, or fpirits, obtruding phantaftic vifions on the foul of the infane perfon. If the majority of dreams are but the madnefs of fleep, what is madness, properly fo cailed, but a waking dream? For, as that moft accomplished metaphyfician very juftly reafons, "The foul, in itself, is an uncompounded, fimple fubitance, and hath no parts, and therefore properly no conftitution: neither is it liable to any change, or alteration, in its own nature. The inert matter of the body could never affect it thus [i. e. could never fo affect the foul, as to occafion madnefs]. That could only limit the faculties of the foul, farther and farther, or deaden its activity: but not animate it after fuch a ter rible manner. Hence there is no other way for its being affected in this manner, but the caufe I have already affigned.. -There is, indeed, a great difference, and variety, in the phenomena of reafon

disturbed.