fent you an answer to the ill-grounded Sophifms of thofe crack-brained fellows, and likewife an eafy mechanical explication of Perception or Think

ing. One of their chief Arguments is, that Selfconfcicufnefs cannot inhere in any fyftem of Matter, because all matter is made up of feveral diftinct beings, which never can make up one individual thinking Being.

This is easily answered by a familiar instance. In every fack there is a meat-roasting Quality, which neither refides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel of the Jack, but is the refult of the whole compofition: So in an Animal, the Self-consciousness is not a real Quality inherent in one Being (any more than meat-roafting in a Jack) but the refult of feveral Modes or Qualities in the fame fubject. As the fly, the wheels, the chain, the weight, the cords, etc. make one Jack, fo the feveral parts of the body make one Animal. As perception, or confcioufnefs, is faid to be inherent in this Animal, fo is meat-roafting faid to be inherent in the Jack. As fenfation, reafoning, volition, memory, etc. are the feveral Modes of thinking; fo roafting of beef, roafting of mutton, roafting of pullets,' geefe, turkeys, etc. are the feveral Modes of meatroafting. And as the general Quality of meatroafting, with its several modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets, etc. does not inhere in any one

a This whole Chapter is an inimitable ridicule on C llin's arguments against Clarke, to prove the Soul to be only a Quality.

part of the Jack; fo neither does Consciousness, with its feveral Modes of fenfation, intellection, volition, etc. inhere in any one, but is the result from the mechanical compofition of the whole Animal.

Juft fo, the Quality or Difpofition of a Fiddle to play tunes, with the feveral Modifications of this tune-playing quality in playing of Preludes, Sarabands, Jigs, and Gavotts, are as much real qualities in the Inftrument, as the Thought or the Imagination is in the mind of the Person that composes them.

The Parts (fay they) of an animal body are perpetually changed, and the fluids which feem to be the fubject of confcioufness, are in a perpetual circulation; so that the fame Individual particles do not remain in the Brain; from whence it will follow, that the idea of individual Consciousnefs must be conftantly tranflated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for example, muft not only be conscious, but confcious that it is the fame being with the particle B that went before.

We answer, this is only a fallacy of the imagination, and is to be understood in no other fense than that maxim of the English Law, that the King never dies. This power of thinking, felf-moving, and governing the whole Machine, is communicated from every Particle to its immediate Succeffor; who, as foon as he is gone, immediately takes upon him the government, which ftill preserves the Unity of the whole System.

They make a great noife about this Individuality; how a man is confcious to himself that he is the fame Individual he was twenty years ago; notwithstanding the flux ftate of the Particles of matter that compofe his body. We think this is capable of a very plain answer, and may be easily illuftrated by a familiar example.

Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted ftockings, which his maid darned so often with filk, that they became at last a pair of filk ftockings. Now fuppofing thofe Rockings of Sir John's endued with fome degree of Conscioufness at every particular darning, they would have been fenfible, that they were the fame individual pair of ftockings, both before and after the darning; and this fenfation would have continued in them through all the fucceffion of darnings and yet after the laft of all, there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stockings, but they were grown to be filk stockings, as was faid before.

And whereas it is affirmed, that every animal is confcious of fome individual felf-moving, felfdetermining principle; it is anfwered, that, as in a House of Commons all things are determined by a Majority, fo it is in every Animal fyftem. As that which determines the Houfe is faid to be the reafon of the whole affembly; it is no otherwife with thinking Beings, who are determined by the greater force of feveral particles; which, like fo many unthinking Members, compofe one thinking System.

And whereas it is likewise objected, that Punishments cannot be just that are not inflicted upon the fame individual, which cannot fubfift without the notion of a spiritual fubftance: We reply, that this is no greater difficulty to conceive, than that a Corporation, which is likewife a flux body, may be punished for the faults, and liable to the debts, of their Predeceffors.

We proceed now to explain, by the ftructure of the Brain, the feveral Modes of thinking. It is well known to Anatomifts, that the Brain is a Congeries of Glands, that feparate the finer parts of the blood, called Animal Spirits; that a Gland is nothing but a Canal of a great length, variously intorted and wound up together. From the Arietation and Motion of the Spirits in thofe Canals, proceed all the different forts of Thoughts. Simple Ideas are produced by the motion of the Spirits in one Simple Canal; when two of thefe Canals difembogue themselves into one, they make what we call a Propofition; and when two of these propofitional Canals empty themselves into a third, they form a Syllogifin, or a Ratiocination. Memory is performed in a diftinct apartment of the Brain, made up of veffels fimilar, and like fituated to the ideal, propofitional, and fyllogistical veffels in the primary parts of the brain. After the fame manner it is eafy to explain the other Modes of thinking; as alfo why fome people think fo wrong and perverfely, which proceed from the bad configuration of thofe Glands. Some, for example, are born with,

out the propositional or fyllogiflical Canals; in others, that reafon ill, they are of unequal capacities; in dull fellows, of too great a length, whereby the motion of the Spirits is retarded; in trifling genius's, weak and fmall; in the overrefining fpirits, too much intorted and winding; and fo of the rest.

We are so much perfuaded of the truth of this our Hypothefis, that we have employed one of our Members, a great Virtuofo at Nuremberg, to make a fort of an Hydraulick Engine, in which a chemical liquor refembling blood, is driven through elaftic channels refembling arteries and veins, by the force of an Embolus like the heart, and wrought by a pneumatick Machine of the nature of the lungs, with ropes and pullies, like the nerves, tendons, and muscles: And we are perfuaded that this our artificial Man will not only walk, and speak, and perform most of the outward actions of the animal life, but (being wound up once a week) will perhaps reafon as well as most of your Country Parfons.

We wait with the utmost impatience for the honour of having you a Member of our Society, and beg leave to affure you that we are, etc.

What return Martin made to this obliging Letter we must defer to another occafion : let it fuffice at present to tell, that Crambe was in a great rage at them, for ftealing (as he thought) a hint from his Theory of Syllogifms, without doing him the honour fo much as to mention him. He advised his Master by no means to enter into