MATERIALISM.

SOME time ago I became acquainted with the fact, that three gentlemen, two of them natives of these realms, the third a gentleman of France, had evinced their unbelief in the existence of soUL, or immaterial principle in man.

The medullary, or pulp of the brain; that is, a soft, clotted cream-like appearance and substance, contained in a box of bone, as a fresh-made cheese in a vat, they report to be equal to the production of all those infinite combinations and phenomena, which are displayed by what, with few exceptions, the sense and apprehension of mankind, whatever might be their characters, have uniformly imagined to consist in mind; or, something opposed to matter-something not perishable with the body-a divine emanation-more than is implied by the expression, "divinæ particulam aurae;" though even this conception of the poet, unaided by the light of revelation, is far more philosophic and acute than the gross

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and unsupported notions of the writers to whom I allude. These learned gentlemen have laboured to convince themselves, and, by their writings, to persuade others, that they have no souls; and that the noble faculty in man, which includes all the inexplicable properties which thought displays; which feels, contemplates, recurs, anticipates, approves, abhors, hopes, and fears; triumphs in remembrance, shudders with remorse; travels in a moment through the regions of space, and whose motions and imaginations are bounded only by infinity

all this, these learned gentlemen have told us is referrible to, and dependent on, the energies and exertions of what?-a pulp, or medullary, the soft and clotted cream-like matter of the brain!

I have remarked, that, with few exceptions, the sentiment and reason of mankind, whatever were their characters-I mean, whether vulgar or refined, whether unschooled or erudite, profligate or correct, have hitherto rendered them steady in the belief of an immaterial principle, or mind, existing within them. But, these exceptions, few as they may prove, are sufficient to illustrate that our three modern physiologists, the advocates of materialism,

have no claim whatever to the praise of originality and invention: they have merely taken up and exhibited the random didactic of preceding materialists, and with dwin dled effect, we trust, because they have argued with greater incoherence. At best they are copyists; but that is not all, they, are bad copyists; their originals had made nothing out; and they have increased the disorder and confusion which prevailed in their archetypes.

There are, nevertheless, as I apprehend, certain people, whose minds have been startled, perhaps much disturbed, by an imagination, that if the doctrine of materialism should rest on a sure foundation, the expectation of a state of being, after the death of the body, must be raised upon a loose one. Nay, even the reasonings. of Messrs. B. L. and Sir T. C. M.. may not have worked their perfect recovery. It is difficult to recall some people to their senses, and to reinstate them in tranquillity and comfort. Much ought, however, to be attempted, though little, one would hope, might prove sufficient to the present charitable purpose. This, let me trust, will be properly effected, when I remark that, if the extravagances of the materialist

should be admitted as facts positively proved, they could not in any way invalidate the evidences of the Christian revelation: and unless they can do this, they can do nothing; nothing, at all events, which can reasonably disturb the faith, or depress the hopes of a Christian.

On the ascertainment of this position, all depends. I assert, then, that the position is sound and true. I assert it, because it is a position which, in its lowest calculation, rests on as firm a support as does mathematical demonstration; it is a SELF-EVIDENT proposition: for how can a fact on one subject, if proved, interfere with the evidence of a fact upon another, to which it bears no relation, nor makes any reference? But, here we have not fact opposed to fact; we have no more than an unwarranted and wild theory on one part, objected to the strongest possible testimony of fact upon the other. That matter can think, is no more than an hypothesis of the theorist that the Christian revelation is divine and true, rests on the consolidated foundation of external and internal evidence. Whether matter can or cannot be conceived to display all the phenomena of "what the immaterialist asserts to be mind,