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from attaining to the fame degrees of Knowledge which we have? What trifling is it to say they reafon but a Little? They compare their Ideas but a Little? They compound them but a Little? For fince material Objects can cause Ideas by making Impreffions of themselves, but no mere Matter can operate upon those Ideas after they are once form'd; then the cause that we reafon more, and Brutes lefs, must be, either because their Organs are not fo well disposed to act in Conjunction with an immaterial Principle; or because the immaterial Principle in them is of a very Diminutive Kind; or not Quite fo immaterial perhaps as ours. They who ftretch their Zeal fo far for making Men of Brutes, are the very Perfons who labour to make Brutes of Men; and will have the Soul of Man to be nothing but Matter with a Faculty of Thinking Superadded to it: And if fo, the Soul of a Brute, according to them, must be Matter with Reason fuperadded to it; for Thinking and Reafon fignify the fame thing.

IT is confeffed then by thefe Men, that Thinking is a Faculty that is not originaly in the Nature of Matter, but Superadded; and if fo then it is a Faculty Above the Nature of it, and therefore Contrary to the Nature of it. But it implies no Contradiction, fay they; no more, fay we, than that God fhould make the fame thing to be Matter, and No Matter at

the fame time; no more than in fuppofing that Almighty Power should take away Knowledge from a pure Spirit, and fuperadd Gravity or Solidity to it; that is, fhould make it fomething elfe, and not Spirit. To which I may add this Contradiction farther, That the fame Faculty of Reason fhall be Essential to a Syftem of Matter, and yet only Accidental and Superadded to that fame Syftem by almighty Power; for that Thinking is Effential to Man I hope will be allowed by those, who contend for the Poffibility of its being Superadded to Brutes.

WHAT Extremes these Advocates for Brutes run into? They attribute Thinking to Beings purely Immaterial, to Angels and to God himself, whereas it is properly the joint Act or Operation of pure Spirit and Matter in effential Conjunction; and on the other hand they attribute thinking or Reason both to Men and Brutes as Mere Matter, without any Union with an immaterial Subftance; and both with equal Abfurdity. That which deceives Men in this latter Opinion is, that in all their Reasonings in favour of Brutes, they ever confound the actual Senfitive Perception these have of outward Objects, with the Knowledge we have of the Ideas of thofe Objects after they are lodged in the Imagination: Whereas the fimple Apprehenfion of the Mind; Judging in all its Inftances; Reasoning, and all the Operations of the Intellect are moftly imploy'd

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and exercised immediately upon Ideas, and not upon their external Objects.

THIS it is which evidently fhews the Neceffity of an immaterial Principle in Man; for the Action or Impreffion of Matter upon Matter, may occafion many, and very diftinct Ideas; but these are as yet nothing more than fo many immediate fenfitive Perceptions of the outward Object conveyed to the Imagination; which may from within prompt and excite Animals to many Operations: But being only confequent to the fimple Perceptions of the Objects, and not being any New Perception or Apprehenfion of the Ideas themselves, it is a Degree of Knowledge which can receive no other Increase than what proceeds from a Renewal or Repetition of the fame or like Impreffions; unless there were a Principle above Matter to apprehend the Ideas themselves, to judge of them, and to reafon upon them. Without this there can be nothing beyond a bare Perception or Idea of the Object, which is fooner or later worn out as there are new Impreffions of different Objects; or according to the Difpofition of those refined and spirituous Parts of the Frame which are more immediately fubfervient to the Imagination, the Seat of those Ideas.

ALL hitherto is but a naked Perception of the outward Object; but when these Ideas are

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1. Aut Percepeon in Brutes is immediately of the external Cinjects themielves; but the Ideas of them are the immediate Objects of the Intellect in Man. They have a bare naked Perception of the fenfible Object only; we have a tarcher Perception or Apprehenfion of the tha ittelf in Distinction from the Object and nate from it. By the Idea they have a Peron of the Object; by the Intellect we apnd the Idea

2. THE Knowledge of Brutes Terminates in Ideas; ours only Begins there.

3. THEIR fimple Ideas of Senfation are the whole Extent of all their Knowledge; whereas they are only the Groundwork and firft Materials of ours

4. IF their Ideas are ever fo little defaced or decayed, they can never be repaired but by a New Impreffion of the Object: Ours can be renewed and revived again, when faded, by voluntary Recollection Without the Object, which is truly and properly Memory.

5. THEY Neceffarily follow the Inftinct and Prompting of their fenfitive Ideas in all their Operations; we can regulate all our Operations even in Oppofition and contrariety to them.

6. THEY cannot Alter the Nature, or Proportion, or Difpofition of any of their Ideas; we can Tranfpofe, and Alter, and Compound them even Against Nature.

II. THE other fort of Abstraction is called Metaphyfical, and is faid to be performed by taking the Mind intirely off from all the Objects, or rather Ideas of Senfation, and all its Compofitions out of them; and from all thofe Complex Notions and Conceptions of things in

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