in this by obferving, that Calves and Philofophers, Tygers and Statesmen, Foxes and Sharpers, Peacocks and Fops, Cock-fparrows and Coquets, Mon*keys and Players, Courtiers and Spaniels, Moles and Mifers, exactly refemble one another in the conformation of the Pineal Gland. He did not doubt likewife to find the fame resemblance in Highwaymen and Conquerors: In order to fatisfy himself in which, it was, that he purchased the body of one of the first Species (as hath been before related) at Tyburn, hoping in time to have the happinefs of one of the latter too, under his Anatomical knife.

We must not omit taking notice here, that these Enquiries into the Seat of the Soul gave occafion to his first correspondence with the fociety of FreeThinkers, who were then in their infancy in England, and fo much taken with the promifing endowments of Martin, that they ordered their Secretary to write him the following Letter.

To the learned Inquifitor into Nature MARTINUS SCRIBLER Us: The Society of Free-Thinkers greeting.

Grecian Coffee-House, May 7.

T is with unspeakable joy we have heard of your inquifitive Genius, and we think it great pity that it should not be better employed, than in

looking after that Theological Non-entity commonly called the Soul: Since after all your enquiries, it 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 Senfe, 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 Sophifms of those crack brained fellows, and likewise an eafy mechanical explication of Percep tion or Thinking.

* One of their chief Arguments is, that Self-confcioufnefs cannot inhere in any system of Matter, because all matter is made up of feveral distinct beings, which never can make up one individual thinking being.

This is easily 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-roasting in a Jack) but the result of several Modes or Quali

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

ties 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 roasting said to be inherent in the Jack. As fenfation, reasoning, 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 meatroafting, with its feveral modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets, etc. does not inhere in any one part of the Jack; fo neither does Consciousness, 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, 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 consciousness, are in a perpetual circulation; fo that the fame individual particles do not remain in the Brain; from whence it will follow, that the idea of Individual Consciousness must be

conftantly tranflated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the Particle A, for example, must 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 sense 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 System.

They make a great noise about this Individuality: how a man is conscious to himself that he is the fame Individual he was twenty years ago; notwithftanding 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 eafily illuftrated by a familiar example.

Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darned so often with filk, that they became at last a pair of filk stockings. Now fuppofing those stockings of Sir John's endued with fome degree of Consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been fenfible, that they were the fame individual pair of flockings both be fore 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 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 likewise a flux body, may be punished for the faults, and liable to the debts, of their Predeceffors.

We proceed now to explain, by the structure 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 no

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