will appear you have loft your labour in feeking the Refidence of fuch a Chimera, that never had being but in the brains of fome dreaming Philofophers. Is it not Demonftration to a perfon of your Sense, that, fince you cannot find it, there is no fuch thing? In order to fet fo hopeful a Genius right in this matter, we have fent you an answer to the illgrounded Sophisms of those crack brain'd fellows, and likewife an eafy mechanical explication of Perception or Thinking.

*One of their chief Arguments is, that Selfconfciousness cannot inhere in any fyftem of Matter, because all matter is made up of several diftinct beings, which never can make up one individual thinking being,

This is eafily answered by a familiar inftance. In every Jack there is a meat-roafting 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-conscioufnefs 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, roasting of mutton, roafting of pullets, geefe, turkeys, etc. are the feveral modes of meat-roafting. And as the general Quality of meat-roafting, with its feveral mo

This whole Chapter is an inimitable ridicule on Collins's arguments againft Clarke, to prove the Soul only a Quality.

difications as to beef, mutton, pullets, etc. does not inhere in any one part of the Jack; fo neither does Conscioufnefs, with its feveral Modes of fenfation, intellection, volition, etc. inhere in any one, but is the refult from the mechanical compofition of the whole Animal.

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

The Parts (fay they) of an animal body are perpetually changed, and the fluids which feem to be the fubject of consciousness, 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 Consciousness muft be conftantly tranflated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for example, must not only be confcious, but conscious 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 fenfe 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 still preserves the Unity of the whole Syftem.

They make a great noife about this Individuality how a man is conscious 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

pable of a very plain answer, and may be easily illuftrated by a familiar example.

Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darn'd so often with filk, that they became at laft a pair of filk ftockings. Now fuppofing those stockings of Sir John's endued with fome degree of Confcioufnefs at every particular darning, they would have been fenfible, that they were the fame individual pair of stockings 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, felf-determining principle; it is anfwered, that, as in a Houfe 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 Syitem.

And whereas it is likewife 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 separate the finer parts

of

of the blood, called Animal Spirits; that a Gland is nothing but a Canal of a great length, varioufly intorted and wound up together. From the Árietadion 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 fimple Canal: when two of these Canals difembogue themfelves into one, they make what we call a Propofition; and when two of these propofitional Chanels empty themselves into a third, they form a Syllogifm, or a Ratiocination. Memory is performed in a diftinét apartment of the brain, made up of veffels fimilar, and like fi tuated to the ideal, propofitional, and fyllogiftical 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 proceeds from the bad configuration of thofe Glands. Some for example, are born without the propofitional or fyllogiftical Canals; in others, that reafon ill, they are of unequal capacities; in dull fellows, of too great a length, whereby the motion of the fpirits is retarded; in trifling genius's, weak and small; in the over-refining fpirits, too much intorted and winding; and fo of the reft.

We are fo 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 thro' elaftick chanels 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 fpeak, and perform moft of the outward actions of

the

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 their Society, unless they would give him fufficient fecurity, to bear him harmless from any thing that might happen after this present life.

CHA P. XIII.

Of the Seceffion of Martinus, and fome Hint of his Travels.

I

T was in the year 1699 that Martin fet out on his Travels. Thou wilt certainly be very curious to know what they were. It is not yet time to inform thee. But what hints I am at liberty to give, I will.

Thou shalt know then, that in his firft Voyage he was carried by a profperous Storm, to a Difcovery of the Remains of the ancient Pygmaan Empire.

That in his fecond, he was as happily fhipwreck'd on the Land of the Giants, now the most humane people in the World.

That