part of the body. If the arm be moved by its impulse when nothing opposes it, yet this arm can no longer move when it is charged with a weight beyond its strength. Here then is a mass of matter that annihilates the impulse given by a spiritual cause, which spiritual cause having no analogy with matter, ought not to find more difficulty in moving the whole world than in moving a single atom, nor an atom than the universe. From this it is fair to conclude that such a substance is a chimera; a being of the imagination: nevertheless such is the being the metaphysicians have made the contriver and the author of nature! !* As soon as I feel an impulse or experience motion, I am under the necessity to acknowledge extent, solidity, density, impenetrability in the substance I see move, or from which I receive impulse: thus, when action is attributed to any cause whatever, I am obliged to consider it material. I may be ignorant of its individual nature, of its mode of action, of its generic properties; but I cannot deceive myself in general properties which are common to all matter: besides this ignorance will only be increased, when I shall take that for granted of a being of which I am precluded from forming As man, in all his speculations, takes himself for the model, he no sooner imagined a spirit within himself, than giving it extent, he made it universal, then ascribed to it all those causes with which his ignorance prevents him from becoming acquainted: thus he identified himself with the supposed author of nature; then availed himself of the supposition to explain the connexion of the soul with the body. His self-complacency prevented his perceiving that he was only enlarging the circle of his errours, by pretending to understand that which it is more than probable he will never know: his self-love prevented him from feeling, that, whenever he punished another for not thinking as he did, he committed the greatest injustice, unless he was satisfactorily able to prove that other wrong-himself right: that if he himself was obliged to have recourse to hypothesis, to gratuitous suppositions, whereon to found his doctrine, that from the very fallibility of his nature these might be erroneous: thus GALILEO was persecuted, because the metaphysicians and the theologians of his day chose to make others believe what it was evident they did not themselves understand. As to our modern metaphysicians, they may dream of a universal spirit after the manner of the human soul-of an infinite intelligence after the No. II.-7 any idea, which moreover deprives it completely of the faculty of moving and acting. Thus, a spiritual substance, that moves itself, that gives an impulse to matter, that acts, implies a contradiction, which necessarily infers a total impossibility. But The partizans of spirituality believe they answer the difficulties they have themselves accumulated, by saying, "The soul is entire, is whole under each point of its extent." If an absurd answer will solve difficulties, they have done it; for after all it will be found, that this point, which is called soul, however insensible, however minute, must yet remain something. if as much solidity had appeared in the answer as there is a want of it, it must be acknowledged, that in whatever manner the spirit or the soul finds itself in its extent, when the body moves forward, the soul does not remain behind; if so, it has a quality in common with the body peculiar to matter, since it is transferred from place to place jointly with the body. Thus, if even the soul should be immaterial, what conclusion must be drawn? Entirely submitted to the motion of the body, without this body it would remain dead and inert. This soul would only be part of a twofold machine, necessarily manner of a finite intelligence; but in so doing they do not perceive that this spirit or intelligence, whether they suppose it finite or infinite, will not be more convenient or fit to move matter. † According to this answer an infinity of unextended substance, or the same unextended substance repeated an infinity of times, would constitute a substance that has extent, which is absurd; for, according to this principle, the human soul would then be as infinite as God, since it is assumed that God is a being without extent, who is an infinity of times whole in each part of the universeand the same is stated of the human soul; from whence we must necessarily conclude that God and the soul of man are equally infinite, unless we suppose unextended substances of different extents, or a God without extent more extended than the human soul. Such are, however, the rhapsodies which some of our theological metaphysicians would have thinking beings believe! With a view of making the human soul immortal, these theologians have spiritualized it, and thus rendered it an unintelligible being; had they said that the soul was the minutest division of matter, it would then have been intelligible-and immortal too, since it would have been an atom, an indissoluble element. impelled forward by a concatenation or connexion with the whole. It would resemble a bird, which a child conducts at its pleasure by the string with which it is bound. Thus, it is for want of consulting experience, and by not attending to reason, that man has obscured his ideas upon the concealed principle of his motion. If, disentangled from prejudice, he would contemplate his soul, or the moving principle that acts within him, he would be convinced that it forms part of his body; that it cannot be distinguished from it but by abstraction; and that it is only the body itself considered relatively with some of its functions, or with those faculties of which its nature and its peculiar organization renders it susceptible. He will also perceive that this soul is obliged to undergo the same changes as the body; that it is born and expands itself with it; that, like the body, it passes through a state of infancy, a period of weakness, a season of inexperience; that it enlarges and strengthens itself in the same progression; that, like the body, it arrives at an adult age, reaches maturity; that it is then it obtains the faculty of fulfilling certain functions, enjoys reason, and displays more or less wit, judgment, and manly activity; that like the body, it is subject to those vicissitudes which exterior causes oblige it to undergo by their influence; that, conjointly with the body, it suffers, enjoys, partakes of its pleasures, shares its pains, is sound when the body is healthy, diseased when the body is oppressed with sickness; that, like the body, it is continually modified by the different degrees of density in the atmosphere; by the variety of the seasons; by the various properties of the aliments received into the stomach: in short, he would be obliged to acknowledge that at some periods, it manifests visible signs of torpor, decrepitude, and death. In despite of this analogy, or rather this continual identity of the soul with the body, man has been desirous of distinguishing their essence: he has therefore made the soul an inconceivable being; but in order that he might form to himself some idea of it, he was after all obliged to have recourse to material beings and to their manner of acting. In fact, the word spirit presents to the mind no other ideas than those of breathing, of respiration, of wind. Thus, when it is said, the soul is a spirit, it really means nothing more than that its mode of action is like that of breathing, which, though invisible in itself, or acting without being seen, produces, nevertheless, very visible effects. But breath is a material cause-it is air modified; it is not therefore a simple, a pure substance, such as the moderns designate under the name of spirit.* Although the word spirit is so very ancient among men, the sense attached to it by the moderns is quite new; and the idea of spirituality, as admitted at this day, is a recent production of the imagination. Neither Pythagoras nor Plato, however heated their brain, and however decided their taste for the marvellous, appear to have understood by spirit an immaterial substance, or one without extent, such as that of which the moderns have formed the human soul, and the concealed author of motion. The ancients, by the word spirit, were desirous to define matter of an extreme subtilty, and of a purer quality than that which acted grossly on our senses. In consequence, some have regarded the soul as an ethereal substance; others as igneous matter: others again have compared it to light. Democritus made it consist in motion, consequently gave it a mode of existence. Aristoxenes, who was himself a musician, made it harmony. Aristotle regarded the soul as the moving faculty upon which depended the motion of living bodies. The earliest doctors of Christianity had no other idea of the soul than that it was material.† Tertullian, Arnobius, respiration. The Greek word Пveux, means * The Hebrew word Ruach, signifies breath, the same thing, and is derived from www, spiro. Lactantius states that the Latin word anima comes from the Greek word avepos which signifies wind. Some metaphysicians fearful of seeing too far into human nature, body, soul, and intellect―Zaux, fun, Nas.— have compounded man of three substances, See Marc. Antonin., Lib. iii. § 16. † According to Origen, auros, incorporeus, an epithet given to God, signifies a substance more subtile than that of gross bodies. Tertullian says, Quis autem negabit deum esse corpus, etsi deus spiritus? The same Tertullian says, Nos autem animam offers nothing but vague ideas—or rather is the absence of all ideas. What does it present to the mind, but a substance which possesses nothing of which our senses enable us to have a knowledge? Can it be truth, that man is able to figure to himself a being not material, having neither extent nor parts, which, nevertheless, acts upon matter without having any point of contact, any kind of analogy with it, and which itself receives the impulse of matter by means of material organs, which announce to it the presence of other beings? Is it possible to conceive the union of the soul with the body, and to comprehend how this material body can bind, enclose, constrain, determine a fugitive being which escapes all our senses? Is it honest to solve these difficulties by saying there is a mystery in them; that they are the effects of an omnipotent power more inconceivable than the human soul and its mode of acting? When, to resolve these problems, man is obliged to have recourse to miracles, and to make the Divinity interfere, does he not avow his own ignorance? Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Saint | Therefore the doctrine of spirituality Justin, Irenæus, have never spoken of it other than as a corporeal substance. It was reserved for their successors, at a great distance of time, to make the human soul, and the soul of the world, pure spirits; that is to say, immaterial substances, of which it is impossible to form any accurate idea: by degrees this incomprehensible doctrine of spirituality, conformable without doubt to the views of theologians who make it a principle to annihilate reason, prevailed over the others:* this doctrine was believed divine and supernatural, because it was inconceivable to man. Those who dared believe that the soul was material, were held as rash, inconsiderate madmen, or else treated as enemies to the welfare and happiness of the human race. When man had once renounced experience and abjured his reason, he did nothing more, day after day, than subtilize the ravings of his imagination: he pleased himself by continually sinking deeper into the most unfathomable depths of errour; and he felicitated himself on his discoveries, on his pretended knowledge, in an exact ratio as his understanding became enveloped with the clouds of ignorance. Thus, in consequence of man's reasoning upon false principles, the soul, or moving principle within him, as well as the concealed moving principle of Nature, have been made mere chimeras, mére beings of the imagination.† corporalem et hic profitemur, et in suo volumine probamus, habentem proprium genus substantiæ, soliditatis, per quam quid et sentire et pati possit. V. De Resurrectione Carnis. The system of spirituality, such as it is admitted at this day, owes all its pretended proofs to Descartes. Although before him the soul had been considered spiritual, he was the first who established that "that which thinks ought to be distinguished from matter;" from whence he concludes that the soul, or that which thinks in man, is a spirit-that is to say, a simple and indivisible substance. Would it not have been more consistent with logic and reason to have said that, since man, who is matter and who has no idea but of matter, enjoys the faculty of thought, matter can think-that is, it is susceptible of that particular modification called thought.-See Bayle's Dictionary, Art. Pomponatius and Simonides. + Although there is so little reason and philosophy in the system of spirituality, yet we must confess that it required deep cunning on the part of the selfish theologians who invented it. To render man susceptible of Let us not, then, be surprised at those subtle hypotheses, as ingenious as they are unsatisfactory, to which theological prejudice has obliged the most profound modern speculators to recur, when they have undertaken to reconcile the spírituality of the soul with the physical action of material beings on this incorporeal substance, its reaction upon these beings, and its union with the body. When the human mind permits itself to be guided by authority without proofto be led forward by enthusiasm-when it renounces the evidence of its senses; what can it do more than sink into errour ? rewards and punishments after death, it was necessary to exempt some portion of him from corruption and dissolution-a doctrine extremely useful to priests, whose great aim is to intimidate, govern, and plunder the ignorant-a doctrine which enables them even to perplex many enlightened persons, who are equally incapable of comprehending the "sublime truths" about the soul and the Divinity! These honest priests tell us, that this immaterial soul shall be burnt, or, in other words, shall experience in hell the action of the material element of fire, and we believe them upon their word!!! Those who wish to form an idea of the shackles imposed by theology on the genius Those who have distinguished the soul from the body, appear only to have distinguished their brain from themselves. Indeed, the brain is the common centre where all the nerves, distributed through every part of the body, meet and blend themselves: it is by the aid of this interior organ that all those operations are performed which are attributed to the soul: it is the impulse, the motion, communicated to the nerve, which modifies the brain: in consequence, it reacts, and gives play to the bodily organs, or rather it acts upon itself, and becomes capable of producing within itself a great variety of motion, which has been designated intellectual faculties. If man wishes to form to himself joys life. Thus, the soul is man conclear ideas of his soul, let him throw sidered relatively to the faculty he has himself back on his experience; let him of feeling, of thinking, and of acting in renounce his prejudices; let him avoid a mode resulting from his peculiar theological conjecture; let him tear the nature; that is to say, from his prosacred bandage with which he has been perties, from his particular organizablindfolded only to confound his reason. tion; from the modifications, whether Let the natural philosopher, let the durable or transitory, which the beings anatomist, let the physician, unite their who act upon him cause his machine experience and compare their observa- to undergo.* tions, in order to show what ought to be thought of a substance so disguised under a heap of absurdities: let their discoveries teach moralists the true motive-power that ought to influence the actions of man-legislators, the true motives that should excite him to labour to the welfare of society-sovereigns, the means of rendering truly happy the subjects committed to their charge. Physical souls have physical wants, and demand physical and real happiness, far preferable, to that variety of fanciful chimeras with which the mind of man has been fed during so many ages. Let us labour to perfect the morality of man; let us make it agreeable to him; and we shall presently see his morals become better, himself become happier; his mind become calm and serene; his will determined to virtue by the natural and palpable motives held out to him. By the diligence and care which legislators shall bestow on natural philosophy, they will form citizens of sound understanding, robust and well constituted, who, finding themselves happy, will be themselves accessary to that useful impulse so necessary to general happiness. When the body is suffering, when nations are unhappy, the mind cannot be in a proper state. Mens sana in corpore sano, a sound mind in a sound body, this always makes a good citizen. The more man reflects, the more he will be convinced that the soul, very far from being distinguished from the body, is only the body itself considered relatively to some of its functions, or to some of the modes of existing or acting of which it is susceptible whilst it en of philosophers born under the "Christian dispensation," let them read the metaphysical romances of Leibnitz, Descartes, Malebranche, Cudworth, etc. and coolly examine the ingenious but rhapsodical systems entitled the ·Pre-established harmony of occasional causes; Physical pre-motion, etc, From this it may be seen, that some philosophers have been desirous to make a spiritual substance of the brain; but it is evidently ignorance that has both given birth to, and accredited this system, which embraces so little of the natural. It is from not having studied himself that man has supposed he was compounded with an agent essentially different from his body: in examining this body he will find that it is quite useless to recur to hypothesis to explain the various phenomena it presents; for admitting into man two substances essentially *When a theologian, obstinately bent on different, is asked why he multiplies beings without necessity? he will reply, "Because thought cannot be a property of matter." give to matter the faculty of thought?" he will If, then, it be inquired of him, " Cannot God answer, "No! seeing that God cannot do impossible things! But this is atheism, for, according to his principles, it is as impossible that spirit or thought can produce matter, as it is impossible that matter can produce spirit or thought: it must, therefore, be concluded against him, that the world was not made by a spirit, any more than a spirit was made by the world; that the world is eternal, and if an eternal spirit exists, then we have two eternal beings, which is absurd. If, therefore, there is only one eternal substance, it is the world, whose existence cannot be doubted or denied, CHAPTER VIII. of the Intellectual Faculties; they are all de rived from the Faculty of Feeling. hypothesis can do nothing more than ought to attribute to spirits gravitation, lead him out of the right road. What electricity, magnetism, &c., &c.* . obscures this question, arises from this, that man cannot see himself: indeed, for this purpose it would be requisite that he could be at one and the same moment both within and without himself. Man may be compared to an Eolian harp, that issues sounds of itself, and should demand what it is that causes it to give them forth? it does not perceive that the sensitive quality of its chords causes the air to brace them; that being so braced, it is rendered sonorous by every gust of wind with which it comes in contact. To convince ourselves that the facul ties called intellectual, are only certain modes of existence, or determinate the peculiar organization of the body, manners of acting which result from we have only to analyze them: we shall then see, that all the operations which are attributed to the soul, are nothing more than certain modifications of the body, of which a substance that is without extent, that has no parts, that is immaterial, is not susceptible. as The first faculty we behold in the living man, that from which all his others flow, is feeling: however inexplicable this faculty may appear on a first view, if it be examined closely, it will be found to be a consequence of the essence, a result of the properties of organized beings; the same gravity, magnetism, elasticity, electricity, &c. result from the essence or nature of some others; and we shall also find that these last phenomena are not less inexplicable than that of feelfine to ourselves a precise idea of it, ing. Nevertheless, if we wish to dewe shall find that feeling is a particular manner of being moved peculiar to certain organs of animated bodies, occasioned by the presence of a material and which transmits the impulse or object that acts upon these organs, shock to the brain. The more experience we collect, the more we shall be convinced that the word spirit conveys no one sense even to those that invented it; consequently, cannot be of the least use either in physics or morals. What modern metaphysicians believe and understand by the word, is in truth nothing more than an occult power, imagined to explain occult qualities and actions, but which, in fact, explains nothing. Savage nations admit of spirits to account to themselves for those effects which to them appear marvellous, and the cause of which they ignore. In attributing to spirits the phenomena of nature, as well as those of the human body, do we, in fact, do any thing more than reason like savages? Man has filled nature with spirits, because he has almost always been ignorant of the true causes of those effects by which he was astonished. Not being acquainted with the powers of nature, he has supposed her to be animated by a great spirit: not understanding the energy of the human frame, he has, in like manner, conjectured it to be ani* It is evident that the notion of spirits, mated by a spirit: from this it would imagined by savages and adopted by the igappear, that whenever he wished to in-norant, is calculated to retard the progress of dicate the unknown cause of the phe-knowledge, since it precludes our researches nomena he knew not how to explain see, by keeping the human mind in apathy in a natural manner, he had recourse to the word spirit. It was according to these principles, that when the Americans first beheld the terrible effects of gunpowder, they ascribed the cause to their Spirits or Divinities: it is by adopting these principles that we now believe in Angels and Demons, and that our ancestors believed in a plurality of Gods, in ghosts, in genii, &c., and pursuing the same track, we into the true cause of the effects which we and sloth. This state of ignorance may be very useful to crafty theologians, but very injurious to society. This is the reason, however, why in all ages priests have persecuted those who have been the first to give natural explanations of the phenomena of nature-as witness Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Galileo, Descartes-and, more recently, Richard Carlile, William Lawrence, Robert Taylor, and Abner Kneeland; to which we may add the name of the learned and venerable Thomas Cooper, M. D., lately president of Columbia College, South Carolina. |