Classic Poem

The system of Dualism introduced by Des Cartes--Refined first by
Spinoza and afterwards by Leibnitz into the doctrine of Harmonia
praestabilita--Hylozoism--Materialism--None of these systems, or any
possible theory of association, supplies or supersedes a theory of
perception, or explains the formation of the associable.


To the best of my knowledge Des Cartes was the first philosopher who
introduced the absolute and essential heterogenity of the soul as
intelligence, and the body as matter. The assumption, and the form of
speaking have remained, though the denial of all other properties
to matter but that of extension, on which denial the whole system of
Dualism is grounded, has been long exploded. For since impenetrability
is intelligible only as a mode of resistance; its admission places the
essence of matter in an act or power, which it possesses in common
with spirit; and body and spirit are therefore no longer absolutely
heterogeneous, but may without any absurdity be supposed to be different
modes, or degrees in perfection, of a common substratum. To this
possibility, however, it was not the fashion to advert. The soul was a
thinking substance, and body a space-filling substance. Yet the apparent
action of each on the other pressed heavy on the philosopher on the one
hand; and no less heavily on the other hand pressed the evident truth,
that the law of causality holds only between homogeneous things, that
is, things having some common property; and cannot extend from one world
into another, its contrary. A close analysis evinced it to be no less
absurd than the question whether a man's affection for his wife lay
North-east, or South-west of the love he bore towards his child.
Leibnitz's doctrine of a pre-established harmony; which he certainly
borrowed from Spinoza, who had himself taken the hint from Des Cartes's
animal machines, was in its common interpretation too strange to survive
the inventor--too repugnant to our common sense; which is not indeed
entitled to a judicial voice in the courts of scientific philosophy;
but whose whispers still exert a strong secret influence. Even Wolf,
the admirer and illustrious systematizer of the Leibnitzian doctrine,
contents himself with defending the possibility of the idea, but does
not adopt it as a part of the edifice.

The hypothesis of Hylozoism, on the other side, is the death of all
rational physiology, and indeed of all physical science; for that
requires a limitation of terms, and cannot consist with the arbitrary
power of multiplying attributes by occult qualities. Besides, it answers
no purpose; unless, indeed, a difficulty can be solved by multiplying
it, or we can acquire a clearer notion of our soul by being told that we
have a million of souls, and that every atom of our bodies has a soul
of its own. Far more prudent is it to admit the difficulty once for all,
and then let it lie at rest. There is a sediment indeed at the bottom
of the vessel, but all the water above it is clear and transparent. The
Hylozoist only shakes it up, and renders the whole turbid.

But it is not either the nature of man, or the duty of the philosopher
to despair concerning any important problem until, as in the squaring of
the circle, the impossibility of a solution has been demonstrated. How
the esse assumed as originally distinct from the scire, can ever unite
itself with it; how being can transform itself into a knowing, becomes
conceivable on one only condition; namely, if it can be shown that the
vis representativa, or the Sentient, is itself a species of being;
that is, either as a property or attribute, or as an hypostasis or self
subsistence. The former--that thinking is a property of matter under
particular conditions,--is, indeed, the assumption of materialism; a
system which could not but be patronized by the philosopher, if only it
actually performed what it promises. But how any affection from without
can metamorphose itself into perception or will, the materialist has
hitherto left, not only as incomprehensible as he found it, but has
aggravated it into a comprehensible absurdity. For, grant that an object
from without could act upon the conscious self, as on a consubstantial
object; yet such an affection could only engender something homogeneous
with itself. Motion could only propagate motion. Matter has no Inward.
We remove one surface, but to meet with another. We can but divide
a particle into particles; and each atom comprehends in itself the
properties of the material universe. Let any reflecting mind make
the experiment of explaining to itself the evidence of our sensuous
intuitions, from the hypothesis that in any given perception there is
a something which has been communicated to it by an impact, or
an impression ab extra. In the first place, by the impact on the
percipient, or ens representans, not the object itself, but only its
action or effect, will pass into the same. Not the iron tongue, but
its vibrations, pass into the metal of the bell. Now in our immediate
perception, it is not the mere power or act of the object, but the
object itself, which is immediately present. We might indeed attempt to
explain this result by a chain of deductions and conclusions; but that,
first, the very faculty of deducing and concluding would equally
demand an explanation; and secondly, that there exists in fact no such
intermediation by logical notions, such as those of cause and effect. It
is the object itself, not the product of a syllogism, which is present
to our consciousness. Or would we explain this supervention of the
object to the sensation, by a productive faculty set in motion by
an impulse; still the transition, into the percipient, of the object
itself, from which the impulse proceeded, assumes a power that can
permeate and wholly possess the soul,

And like a God by spiritual art,
Be all in all, and all in every part.

And how came the percipient here? And what is become of the wonder-
promising Matter, that was to perform all these marvels by force of
mere figure, weight and motion? The most consistent proceeding of the
dogmatic materialist is to fall back into the common rank of soul-and-
bodyists; to affect the mysterious, and declare the whole process a
revelation given, and not to be understood, which it would be profane
to examine too closely. Datur non intelligitur. But a revelation
unconfirmed by miracles, and a faith not commanded by the conscience,
a philosopher may venture to pass by, without suspecting himself of any
irreligious tendency.

Thus, as materialism has been generally taught, it is utterly
unintelligible, and owes all its proselytes to the propensity so common
among men, to mistake distinct images for clear conceptions; and vice
versa, to reject as inconceivable whatever from its own nature is
unimaginable. But as soon as it becomes intelligible, it ceases to be
materialism. In order to explain thinking, as a material phaenomenon, it
is necessary to refine matter into a mere modification of intelligence,
with the two-fold function of appearing and perceiving. Even so did
Priestley in his controversy with Price. He stripped matter of all its
material properties; substituted spiritual powers; and when we expected
to find a body, behold! we had nothing but its ghost--the apparition of
a defunct substance!

I shall not dilate further on this subject; because it will, (if God
grant health and permission), be treated of at large and systematically
in a work, which I have many years been preparing, on the Productive
Logos human and divine; with, and as the introduction to, a full
commentary on the Gospel of St. John. To make myself intelligible as
far as my present subject requires, it will be sufficient briefly to
observe.--1. That all association demands and presupposes the existence
of the thoughts and images to be associated.--2. That the hypothesis of
an external world exactly correspondent to those images or modifications
of our own being, which alone, according to this system, we actually
behold, is as thorough idealism as Berkeley's, inasmuch as it equally,
perhaps in a more perfect degree, removes all reality and immediateness
of perception, and places us in a dream-world of phantoms and spectres,
the inexplicable swarm and equivocal generation of motions in our own
brains.--3. That this hypothesis neither involves the explanation, nor
precludes the necessity, of a mechanism and co-adequate forces in the
percipient, which at the more than magic touch of the impulse from
without is to create anew for itself the correspondent object. The
formation of a copy is not solved by the mere pre-existence of an
original; the copyist of Raffael's Transfiguration must repeat more or
less perfectly the process of Raffael. It would be easy to explain a
thought from the image on the retina, and that from the geometry of
light, if this very light did not present the very same difficulty.
We might as rationally chant the Brahim creed of the tortoise that
supported the bear, that supported the elephant, that supported the
world, to the tune of "This is the house that Jack built." The sic
Deo placitum est we all admit as the sufficient cause, and the divine
goodness as the sufficient reason; but an answer to the Whence and Why
is no answer to the How, which alone is the physiologist's concern.
It is a sophisma pigrum, and (as Bacon hath said) the arrogance of
pusillanimity, which lifts up the idol of a mortal's fancy and commands
us to fall down and worship it, as a work of divine wisdom, an ancile or
palladium fallen from heaven. By the very same argument the supporters
of the Ptolemaic system might have rebuffed the Newtonian, and pointing
to the sky with self-complacent grin have appealed to common sense,
whether the sun did not move and the earth stand still.