_Of Dr. Priestley’s Metaphysical Writings._
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 mutual supports 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 a
_popular_ doctrine. 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 throughout the 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 Theophilus Lindsey, 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
profit or 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 learning does 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 divines
for 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 the _academicorum_ εποχη 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 to _unsettle
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 or to 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 the _esprit de corps_; from a dread too
perhaps, lest the tottering structure of church establishment, with all
its envied accompaniments of sees and benefices, 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 the _main_ purpose 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 which though
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 in the 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 demonstrated from 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 containing many 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 as _Le Systeme de la nature_ attributed to Mirabeau
the father, _Le vrai sens du Systeme de l’univers_ a posthumous work
ascribed to Helvetius, _Le Bon Sens_ by 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 perused Hartley’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.
Substitute PERCEPTION, 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 have _no_
evidence 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 the _third_ edition 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 animals as 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] A _Sensation_ is 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 or _perceived_.
An _Idea_, 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 correspondent _Idea_.
[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 founded on 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 the _facts_ relating 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 a _petitio principii_. Indeed we are not yet fully apprized
either in Law, Physic or Divinity any more than in Metaphysics, that
the _species intelligibiles_ of 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 to a 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 continued and 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 least was 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 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 the _Bigot’s_ rant? 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!
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 a _probable expectation_ of 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.
The SECOND part 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 extra_ and _ab 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 was there 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 of _moral_ necessity only,
and not of _physical_ necessity. 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, and Gordon 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 the _scientia contingentium_, the great and
insuperable difficulty of God’s pretended foreknowledge of uncertain
events, can on no other hypothesis be avoided, and that the doctrine
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. Horsely 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 may profess 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 the controul 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 equally the 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’s_ doctrine 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 satisfactory reply 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 result of 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 his _Essais 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]
[73] _Dieu_ est _la premiere Raison des choses_: car celles qui
sont bornèes, comme tout ce que nous voyons et experimentons,
sont contingentes, & n’ont rien en elles qui rende leur existence
necessaire; ètant manifeste que le tems, l’espace & la matière
unies & uniformes en elles-mèmes, & indifferentes à tout, pouvoient
recevoir de tout autres mouvemens & figures, & dans un autre ordre.
Il faut donc chercher _la raison de l’existence du monde_, qui est
l’assemblage entier des choses _contingentes_; & il faut la chercher
dans _la substance qui porte la raison de son existence avec elle_, &
laquelle par consequent est _necessaire_ & éternelle. Il faut aussi
que cette cause soit _intelligente_; car ce Monde qui existe étant
contingent, & une infinitè d’autres Mondes étant également possibles
& également prétendans à l’existence, pour ainsi dire, aussi bien que
lui, il faut que la cause du monde ait eu égard ou relation à tous ces
Mondes possibles pour en déterminer un. Et cet égard on rapport d’une
substance existante à de simples possibilités, ne peut etre autre
chose que _l’entendement_ qui en a les idées; & en déterminer une, ne
peut etre autre chose que l’acte de _la volonté_ qui choisit. Et c’est
_la puissance_ de cette substance qui en rend la volonté efficace.
La puissance va à l’_etre_, la sagesse ou l’entendement _au vrai_, &
la volonté _au bien_. Et cette cause intelligente doit etre infinie
de toutes les manieres, & absolument parfaite _en puissance_, en
_sagesse_ & en _bonté_, puisqu’elle va à tout ce qui est possible. Et
comme tout est lié, il n’y a pas lieu d’en admettre plus d’_une_. Son
entendement est la source des _essences_, & sa volonté est l’origine
des _existances_. Voilà en peu de mots la preuve d’un Dieu unique avec
ses perfections, & par lui l’origine des choses.
8. Or cette suprême sagesse jointe à une bonté qui n’est pas moins
infinie qu’elle, n’a pu manquer de choisir le meilleur. Car comme un
moindre mal est une espece de bien; de même un moindre bien est une
espece de mal, s’il fait obstacle à un bien plus grand: & il y auroit
quelque chose à corriger dans les actions de Dieu, s’il y avoit moyen
de mieux faire. Et comme dans les Mathématiques, quand il n’y a point
de _maximum_ ni de _minimum_, rien enfin de distingué, tout se fait
également; ou quand cela ne se peut, il ne se fait rien du tout; on
peut dire de même en matière de parfaite sagesse, qui n’est pas moins
reglée que les Mathématiques, que s’il n’y avoit pas le meilleur
(_optimum_) parmi tous les Mondes possibles, Dieu n’en auroit produit
aucun. J’appelle _Monde_ toute la suite & toute la collection de toutes
les choses existantes, afin qu’on ne dire point que plusieurs Mondes
pouvoient exister en differens temps & differens lieux. Car il faudroit
les compter tous ensemble pour un Monde, ou si vous voulez pour un
_Univers_. Et quand on rempliroit tous les tems & tous les lieux; il
demeure toujours vrai qu’on les auroit pu remplir d’une infinité de
manières, & qu’il y a une infinité de Mondes possibles, dont il faut
que Dieu ait choisi le meilleur; puisqu’il ne fait rien sans agir
suivant la suprême Raison.
9. Quelque adversaire ne pouvant répondre à cet argument, répondra
peut-être à la conclusion par un argument contraire, en disant que le
Monde auroit pu être sans le péché & sans les souffrances: mais je nie
qu’alors il auroit été _meilleur_. Car il faut savoir que tout est
_lié_ dans chacun des mondes possibles: l’Univers, quel qu’il puisse
être, est tout d’une pièce, comme un Océan; le moindre mouvement y
étend son effet à quelque distance que ce soit, quoique cet effet
devienne moins sensible à proportion de la distance, de sorte que
Dieu y a tout réglé par avance une fois pour toutes, ayant prévu les
prières, les bonnes & les mauvaises actions, & tout le reste; & chaque
chose a contribué _idéalement_ avant son existence a la resolution qui
a été prise sur l’existence de toutes les choses. De sorte que rien ne
peut être changé dans l’Univers (non plus que dans un nombre) sauf son
essence, ou si vous voulez, sauf son _individualité numérique_. Ainsi,
si le moindre mal qui arrive dans le Monde y manquoit, ce ne seroit
plus ce Monde; qui tout compteé, tout rabattu, a été trouvé le meilleur
par le Créateur qui l’a choisi.
According to this opinion of Leibnitz, the operative motive in the
choice of the present system being the attribute of Benevolence in the
Almighty, the existence of all that we term _evil_, is with respect
to him, and his preordination of it, _good_; for the whole intention
and motive of its permission is founded in perfect goodness guided
by perfect wisdom. With respect to the finite beings, by whom evil is
permitted to take place, there can be no doubt on this scheme, but the
balance of existence will be happiness even to them, whenever by proper
discipline they are fitted to enjoy it. Perhaps it may be doubted
without infringing on the reverence due to the supreme disposer of all
events, whether it would be consistent with his justice, knowingly and
voluntarily to bring into existence, a sentient being, destined to be
permanently miserable.
The question of Materialism, has been discussed since the disquisition
of Dr. Priestley, by Mr. Cooper, who adopts the same side. Dr. Ferriar
of Manchester, has rendered it dubious how far the sentient principle
ought to be confined to the brain, though the facts he adduces, apply
with equal force against the common hypothesis of a separate soul,
acting by means of the body. The doctrine of Necessity has been opposed
by Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh, but with a weakness of argument, and a
petulance of language, that places his work in the lowest rank among
the writers who have adopted the same side of the question. It hardly
deserved the notice of so good an advocate as Dr. Crombie, who has been
the latest author on the subject.
Indeed, the question must now be considered as settled; for those who
can resist Collins’s philosophical enquiry, the section of Dr. Hartley
on the Mechanism of the mind, and the review of the subject taken by
Dr. Priestley and his opponents, are not to be reasoned with. _Interest
reipublicæ ut denique sit finis litium_, is a maxim of technical law.
It will apply equally to the republic of letters; and the time seems
to have arrived, when the separate existence of the human soul, the
freedom of the will, and the eternal duration of future punishment,
like the doctrines of the Trinity, and Transubstantiation, may be
regarded as no longer entitled to public discussion.
It is for this reason that I have paid no attention to the hypothesis
of the Scotch Doctors, Reid, Beattie and Oswald, and have given no
detailed account of Dr. Priestley’s examination of their writings.
Indeed the perfect oblivion into which these writers have fallen, and
the utter insufficiency of such young gentlemen and lady’s philosophy
as they have adopted, has secured them from further animadversion.
The facility with which ignorance can refer all difficulties relating
to the phenomena of mind, to instinctive principles and common sense,
might answer the purpose of popular declamation for a while, but it
could not last; and these writers have fallen into merited obscurity,
notwithstanding the national prejudice in favour of each other, so
prevalent among the Literati of North Britain.
Some passages in Dr. Reid, however ought to exempt him from the
contempt which is due to the common system advanced by him and his
coadjutors: and his last book on the Active powers of man, is a work
of undeniable merit on a very important subject, which has not yet
been discussed with half the labour it so eminently deserves. The
Synthesis and Analysis of our ideas, the history and process of their
formation, and the detail of facts attending and connected with their
rise and progress, is comparatively a new subject. Des Cartes, Buffier
and Condillac among the French, Locke, Berkeley and Hartley among the
English, and Hume, Reid, and Adam Smith among the Scotch, are almost
the only authors worth notice who have treated it expressly, and most
of them only partially.[74] Something may be found to the purpose in
Hobbes, and in the first part of Dr. Priestley’s examination of Reid,
Oswald and Beattie, and more in the first volume of Zoonomia, § 14 and
15.[75] The common sense of Dr. Reid and Co. seems to have been employed
as the _clavis universalis on_ this subject by Buffier, in his “First
Truths.” Hutcheson’s theory of the Moral Sense hardly merits notice,
nor does that of Dr. Price promise to add much to the stock of real
knowledge. We have had enough (_sat superque_) of occult principles,
innate principles, and instinctive principles, which illustrate
nothing, but the ignorance of those who employ them.
[74] Dr. Dugal Stewart in Scotland, and the Revd. Mr. Belsham in
England, have published Elements of the Philosophy of the mind, the
first inclining to the Scotch School of Metaphysics, the latter to the
System of Hartley; both of them of merit in their way, particularly (as
I think that of Mr. Belsham).
[75] I cannot help thinking Dr. Darwin’s obligations to Dr. Hartley
and Dr. Brown ought to have dictated more acknowledgement than he has
condescended to make.
For my own part, I am persuaded that no Theory of the mind can be
satisfactory, which is not founded on the history of the Body. I
know of no legitimate passport to Metaphysics but Physiology. Hence
I cannot estimate highly the writings of the Scotch Metaphysicians.
There is one other feature also common to this School, which satisfies
me of their incompetence to this subject; their slight notice, and
ambiguous approbation of a man so superior as Dr. Hartley, and their
utter ignorance or neglect of the theory he has advanced. On every
subject relating to the phenomena of mind, Dr. Hartley’s book must be
adopted as the ground work of the reasoning, or his principles must be
previously and distinctly confuted.[76]
[76] Dr. Reid in his last work has given a critique on Dr. Hartley’s
theory without understanding it, or even touching on the important
points. That theory in substance is this: an external object (a peach
for instance) makes an impression at once, on our organs of feeling,
of sight, and of taste. The impression thus made on the extreme end
of the appropriate nerve, is propagated by some species of motion
along the course of nerve up to the brain, and there, and there only,
perceived; for if the nerve be cut, or tied, or palsied, in any part of
its course, the impression is not perceived. Motions in the brain thus
produced, and perceived, are _sensations_: similar motions arising, or
produced without the impression of an external object, are _ideas_.
These impressions being in the instance given, simultaneous or nearly
so, are associated, so that the sensation produced by the sight of a
peach, will give rise to motions in the brain similar to those produced
at first by the taste and the touch of it: i. e. it will suggest the
_ideas_ of taste and touch, and excite the inclination to reach and to
eat the object of them. Hence sensations, ideas, and muscular motions
are associated together and mutually suggest and give rise to each
other. What species of motion it is, with which the nervous system is
affected in this process, or whether Sir Isaac Newton’s Æther, or its
modern substitute the electric fluid, has any thing to do with it or
not, is no essential part of the theory, and may be adopted or rejected
without prejudice to the main system. Some kind of motion there
manifestly is; I think it _demonstrable_ that it is vibratory; but of
whatever kind it be, its existence in the brain is unquestionable;
and the association and catenation of individual motions in the brain
according to certain laws, is equally so. This is matter of fact,
and it was Dr. Reid’s business if he could, to shew that neither the
motions, the perceptions, or the associations took place in that organ.
The general law is expressed by Hartley Prop. 20. Cor. 7.
The Metaphysics of the present day require also, a more accurate
attention to the Theory of Grammar than has hitherto been paid by
writers on the subject. Perhaps I do not assert too much in saying
that we have had no grammarians worth notice, none who have thrown
light on the principles of Grammar, but Locke and Horne Tooke. What
dreadful confusion has arisen from treating words denoting what are
called abstract ideas, as if they were the exponents of real individual
existence? Whereas they are merely signs of artificial classification
without any individual archetype. For instance in relation to the
present subject, what volumes of laboured and learned trifling have
been written on the _Will_, the _Judgment_, the _Understanding_ and
the other faculties as they are called, of the soul! Yet nothing is
more certain than that the will, the judgment, the understanding,
&c. have no existence: they are words only, the counters employed in
reasoning, convenient signs of arrangement, like the _plus_ the _minus_
and the _unknown quantity_ in Algebra, but no more. The time however is
approaching, when Metaphysics will take rank among the Sciences that
lay claim, if not to absolute demonstration, yet to an approximation to
certainty sufficient for all the purposes of ethical reasoning, and all
the practical duties of human life.
_ERRATA._
PAGE, LINE.
23 10 from the top, For deliverery, read delivery.
84 14 -- -- ” Actes, ” Artes
” ” -- -- ” _pecsinit_, ” _nec sinit_.
90 bottom line, ” No. 6, ” No. 4.
160 2 -- -- ” Bur, ” But.
172 3 -- -- ” Biancount, ” Liancourt.
188 1 -- -- ” determing, ” determining.
” 8 -- -- ” he ” her.
214 1 -- -- For wall, read well.
218 3 from the bottom ” immorality, ” immortality.
229 2 -- -- ” 1679, ” 1767.
269 3 -- -- ” fort, ” forte.
304 8 from the bottom after, the Author, ” Dr. Coward.
” 1 from the top, ” predomininates, ” predominates.
333 7 from the top of the note for disc, ” dire.
357 12 from the top For is, ” it.