think that they have dived deeper into the subject than other men, fay that every, body confifts of innumerable points, which are each a centre of the oppofite powers of attraction and repulfion. But if this be fo, what can make it contradictory to maintain the unity of mind, and at the fame time fuppofe each mind endowed with the diftin&t faculties of understanding, memory, and will? When a Newtonian philofopher attributes to the inertia of matter the resistance which all bodies make to a change of state, whether of motion or of reft, he does not mean to attribute it to inertia as feparated from extenfion, figure, and weight, but to the quality which he calls inertia, united with the other effential qualities by that unknown fomething which he calls the fubftratum of body. When the metaphyfician alfo traces a feries of effects and causes to the will of God, he does not trace them to that will as feparated from the Divine intelligence, or the Divine goodness. It is not the power of beginning or continuing motion, confidered abftractly, that Cicero, in his abfurd argument for the eternity of the foul, confiders as the principle from which all things arofe, but the being endowed with that power. But what reafon have we to confider power as an attribute of fubftance? We have the best reafon poffible: each man knows it to be an attribute of that fubftance which properly and emphatically he calls himself. It is from attention to the operations of our own minds alone, that we acquire any accurate notion of power*; and every man who has paid attention to thefe, knows, by the evidence of consciousness, which even Hume himself admitted to be infallible, that he, the fame individual being, exerts powers of understanding, memory, and will, or, in other words, perceives, compares, judges, remembers, and acts. But, afks our author, "What is the fubftance of the foul? If reafon, perception, understanding, volition, memory, and imagination, be powers of the foul, what is the foul itself?" P. 7. We anfwer; it is that which reasons, perceives, underftands, wills, remembers, and imagines; juft as we conceive the fubftance of body to be that which is extended, of some fhape, inert, and heavy. When we exert the power of imagination, we are confcious that we are not reafoning, or, in the proper sense of the word, perceiving; and when we perceive any thing, or reafon about it, we are conscious that we are not imagining. Imagination therefore is different from * British Critic, Vol. xxvi. pp. 30g-311. perception perception and reafon; but every man is confcious that he, the fame individual being, who reafons or judges, or perceives at one time, imagines at another. These powers therefore muft be fomehow united; and that which unites them may be called the fubftratum* of the foul, as the foul itself, or the fubftance of the foul, confifts of thofe powers thus united. To this our author will reply: "I ask if it be not then evident, that all diftinction must be made, not between things, but between their qualities? Material fubftance, confidered as fubftance, could not be diftinguished from fpiritual fubftance; and we could not affert, that the fubftance of the Deity is different from that of the world, which he has created. The deift probably will not choose to come to this conclufion; and will therefore rather fay, that the qualities are determined by the nature of the thing, than that the thing is determined by the nature of the qualities. Now if power have refulted from fubftance, it is evident that fubftance had the prior exiftence. Power only exifts when action is begun, and God was before he acted." P. 7. That power exifts only when action is begun, is an affertion contradicted as well by conscioufnels as by experience. Has a man fitting at table no power to rife up, nor a horse any power till he be yoked to the plough? What our author fays of God is at variance with the doctrine of Cicero, who declares the very contrary of that principle, from which, as we have feen, he derives all things, but to talk of prior and pofterior with regard to God, is at once abfurd and impious. It is a melancholy proof of the truth of the poet's obferva tion: "That men rufh in where angels fear to tread.” * We are perfectly aware that fubftratum is not commonly em ployed in this fenfe, nor do we contend for the propriety of fo ufing it. Subftance, however, would be lefs proper, because subftance, when fpoken of body, implies not that after which our author is feeking, but the fubftratum, with all the effential qualities of body inhering in it. The word inhering, too, cannot be literally understood when applied to mind, nor union, nor even underStanding, and numberlefs other words, which are all derived from fenfible objects; and it is this circumftance which renders the writing of a fyftem of univerfal fcepticism fo very eafy a task, that it might be performed by any head of tolerable talents juft emancipated from college. The fceptic will fay that the word fyftem is here improperly used, for that his principles admit not of fyitem. Of this we are perfectly aware, and it furnishes an additional proof of the truth of our observation. On On this part of the extract, therefore, we fhall make no further remarks; though we hope to fhow, that in the reafoning which precedes it, there is nothing to authorize fo fingular a conclufion. It is indeed true, that all diftin&tion, directly and immediately known to us, is between the qualities of things, and not be tween thofe invifible bafes, or fubftrata, in which certain combinations of thofe qualities are conceived as inherent; but it does not therefore follow, that we may not infer, from the difference of the qualities, that the bafes, in which they refpectively inhere, are equally different. It was well argued by Dr. Clarke and Mr. Baxter, that thought and confcioufnefs are fo totally different from extenfion and divifi bility, that they cannot be conceived as spread over a surface, or as diffufed through a divisible mafs; and hence it was inferred, that the bafis of those powers is neither extended nor divifible, and therefore fomething totally different from corporeal fubftance. The argument, when properly underflood, feems to be conclufive; but it is not always underflood even by thofe who quote it. Many people, even philosophers, having paid no attention to the process by which we acquire the idea of extenfion, can form to themselves no notion of an unextended foul, but by comparing it to the smallest phyfical point; but this is not the notion fuggefted by the reafonings of Clarke and Baxter, for the smalleft phyfical point is extended. It was their object to prove, and we think they have proved, that neither extenfion, nor fuch inextenfion as that of a point, can be predicated of the bafis of conscioufnefs, or thought; and that it is as great nonsense to talk of confcioufnefs being combined with extenfion, as of the found of a trumpet being combined with colour. We cannot with propriety, or indeed without abfurdity, fay, that a found either has or wants colour; nor can we but with equal abfurdity fay, that the bafis of confcioufnefs is either extended, like a fquare inch for inftance, or inextended like an evanefcent, point. In all this there is nothing which to us appears difficult to be conceived, or which can reasonably be called in question; and therefore we may affert, with the utmost confidence, that the fubftance of the Deity is as different from the substance of the world which he created, as activity is different from inertnefs, or as confcioufnefs and intelligence are from length, breadth, and thickness. When the author affirms, that if power have refulted from fubftance, it is evident that fubftance had the prior exiftence," we are not fure that we understand him; for this is not the language of those me taphy taphyficians, with whofe works we are beft acquainted. Body cannot exift without dimenfions, weight, figure, &c. and mind cannot exift without the powers of perception, &c. For the fake of reasoning about them, we form, or try to form, fome ideas of figure, extenfion, &c. independent of the basis in which they inhere; and for the fame purpose we try to form notions of power, independent of the being or beings of which it is an attribute; but these feparations are mere creatures of our own, and cannot be conceived to have ever had a real place in nature. "Another difficulty refults from the hypothefis in question, (of our having any notion of power.) Every power which is exercifed implies another power by which it is exercifed. Where power is tranfmitted, there must be a power to tranfmit. If there be a faculty, by which we understand, there must also be a power, by which we are enabled to employ that faculty of understanding. The power by which an action is performed, indicates a prior power, which enables the agent to make use of that which is the immediate cause of the action; and this prior power likewise implics another previous power, by which it has been exercifed. Thus the Jeries may become infinite; and for every power fuppofed, another may be pre-fuppofed." P.g. If this be good reasoning, Mr. Drummond is certainly not the author of the work entitled Academical Questions, now under review. He may have felt a ftrong defire to difplay his ingenuity, by calling in queftion every received truth, and undermining the foundation of every fyftem of fcience; but fomething muft have previously excited that defire, and fome prior power muft have enabled him to exercife that power, by which he has endeavoured to gratify it. "The power, by which an action is performed, indicates a prior power, which enables the agent to make ufe of that which is the immediate caufe of the action; and this prior power like. wife implies another previous power, by which it has been exercifed." Now if this feries, in the prefent cafe, be infinite, no man is the author of the work entitled Academical Queftians, which, in 1805, exifts by the fame kind of neceflity, by which a geometrical axiom has always been true; but if the feries be finite, the author of the work is the firft power in that feries, and not Mr. Drummond, who acted as a mere inftrument, just like the pen with which he wrote! In either cafe, for every power fuppofed we may here not only prefuppofe another power, but with moral certainty of not being miftaken, trace the series of powers backward through more than two thousand years. Thus Thus, the power immediately prior to our nominal author was unquestionably Mr. Hume, who, by his Treatife of Human Nature, and the fecond volume of his Effays, enabled Mr. Drummond to make use of that which was the immediate cause of the Academical Queftions; the power immediately prior to Mr. Hume was Bishop Berkeley, who, by his Treatife concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, and his three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, enabled Hume to make use of that which was the immediate cause of his Treatife and his Effays; and the powers immediately prior to Berkeley appear to have been Plato and his followers, with whose writings the bifhop is known to have been particularly converfant. The Academical Questions, therefore, are either the offspring of fate, or the work of fome antient Platonist; and if their tendency be dangerous, no blame can be imputed to Mr. Drummond, who is likewife entitled to no praise for whatever ingenuity may appear in the difcuffion of them! That arguments or principles which lead to fuch conclufions as this are not found, will adınit, we think, of no doubt; but in the prefent cafe, the fallacy is apparent. It is fo far from being true, that "every power which is exercifed implies another power by which it is exercifed," that the very reverse is the truth, and felt to be the truth by every man of reflection. Power to do any thing implies, in the very notion of it, power to leave that thing undone; and no man ever fuppofed that fuch actions as he could not prevent were performed by his own power. Every action and every event implies power fomewhere; but they are the actions of ourfelves alone that we can trace, with abfolute certainty, to the powers from which they immediately proceed. We walk, ftand ftill, or fit, read or write, &c. and every man is confcious that he does fo by his own power; our hearts too continually beat, and every fyftole and diastole proceed ultimately from fome power; but, as we are not confcious of thefe motions, who knows not that the power from which they proceed is not his own? "The motion of external bodies does not furnifh us with any idea of what may be the motive principle. To perceive one object impelling, and another impelled, is not to perceive that which Berkeley did not, like Hume and the prefent author, call in queftion the existence of the human foul, or deny that we have any notion of power. He only denied the existence of corporeal fub ftances; and it is well known that fach fubftances were by Plato and his followers denominated và μù žíla. generates |