Part 26

These subjects called forth remarks by Dr. Price, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Bryant, Dr. Kenrick, Mr. Whitehead, Dr. Horsely and others; to all of whom, answers were given by Dr. Priestley.

The controversy with Dr. Price is a pleasing specimen of the manner in which an important subject can be amicably discussed between two friends, and made interesting too, by the manner as well as the matter, without any thing of that “seasoning of controversy” which Dr. Horsely afterward thought so necessary to keep alive the public attention, and which he strews over his polemics with so unsparing a hand. The Bishop had not yet however adopted that stile of arrogance by which he has since been so disgracefully distinguished; and it is to be regretted for the sake of his own character as a gentleman and as a writer, that he adopted it at all. Dr. Horsely should recollect, that those who emulate the insolence of Warburton ought at least to give proofs of equal learning and acuteness; and that bigotry and intolerance in defence of opinions which, though a man may profess to believe, he can hardly profess to understand, will do no credit to his religious, his moral, or his literary character in the present state of knowledge. But character as a writer, may be a secondary consideration, to one who is determined to verify the saying, that godliness is great gain.

Dr. Horseley’s polemic strictures on Dr. Priestley’s writings, exhibit a singular compound of insolence and absurdity. But he is contented, I presume, if he rises in the church, as he sinks in reputation. Some of his opinions are truly diverting. His theory of divine generation by the Father contemplating his own perfections, and his grave suggestion of the three persons of the Godhead meeting together in consultation, stand a fair chance of being noticed by some wicked wit, who may wish to expose the infirmities of orthodoxy real or pretended.

It has been a misfortune to this question, that it has seldom been treated by persons who knew any thing of the organization or physiology of the human frame; and that it has been complicated with all the prejudice arising from the theological tenets of those who opposed the doctrine of necessity. Every physician knows, though metaphysicians know little about it, that the laws which govern the animal machine, are as certain and invariable as those which guide the planetary system, and are as little within the controul of the human being who is subject to them. Every sensation therefore, and every idea dependent on, or resulting from the state of the sensory, is the necessary effect of the laws of organization by which that state was produced. But we neither have nor can have any sensation or any idea, but what is so dependent, or but what thus results; for we can neither feel nor think without the brain. The words we use for the Phenomena termed mental, are mere terms of classification and arrangement of the sensations and ideas thus produced, and their combinations. Hence it follows, that all these phenomena depend on the laws which regulate the animal system, and are the necessary, inevitable result of those laws. The obscurity which has enveloped this question, has arisen from want of due attention to that state of mind (or rather of body) which we call, the will; and from the power that animals seem to have over the voluntary muscles. But every Physiologist knows that the state of the system which calls into action the voluntary muscles, that is, a state of want, desire or inclination, whether to act or to abstain, is the result of previous circumstances to which the animal is exposed; and the action of the voluntary muscles, is equally the result of necessary laws, as those of the involuntary.

The great object of terror to the Divines in this question about Necessity, was the consequence resulting, that God is the author of Sin. Many and subtile were the distinctions made upon this subject by the necessarian theologists among the schoolmen, and down to the middle of the seventeenth century. Richard Baxter the peace-maker, in his Christian Directory, his Catholic Theologie and some other works, has briefly reviewed them all, and as usual distinguished upon them so acutely, that what was not quite clear before, he has most effectually obscured. The prevailing opinion, however, seems to have been, not that God permitted the sinful act (for the reply was unanswerable, that God must be considered, as willing that which he does not prevent when he can,) but that God, in the common course of nature as pre-ordained by him, permitted the action itself to come to pass, but not the intention or quo animo of the actor, in which the sin consists; or as Gale expresses it in the quaint language of the time, it is “God’s pre-determinate concurse to the entitative act.”

Indeed, I do not see with the orthodox notions then prevalent, how it was possible on the hypothesis of God’s foreknowing and pre-ordaining all that comes to pass, to avoid considering God Almighty as the author of Sin; and to feel repugnance toward a system, which makes the deity inflict eternal punishment on a creature, whose actions he might have controuled, and whose existence he could have prevented. Such manifest injustice might be viewed without horror, by the brutal bigotry of Calvin, but the tenets that drew after them such a consequence, could not be adopted without hesitation and regret, by any, but the most thorough going, unfeeling zealot.

Origen’s doctrine of Universal Restitution, was first advanced in England (so far as I know) by Rust, Bishop of Dromore, and Jeremy White, who I believe had been Chaplain to Cromwell. Since that, the labours of Stonehouse, Petitpierre, Newton, Winchester, Chauncey and Simpson, have furnished ground enough for us to adopt it as the doctrine of scripture as well as of common sense. By connecting this doctrine with that of necessity, Dr. Hartley and Dr. Priestley have been enabled to give a full and satisfactory reply to all the objections that can be drawn from the theory of necessity, making God the author of Sin. Indeed, unless God’s foreknowledge be denied, the same difficulty must occur on either scheme: for he has knowingly and voluntarily adopted a system, in which the existence of evil if not necessary, is at least undeniable.

Granting the goodness of God, it follows according to Dr. Priestley, that he has adopted that system which is most conducive to general, and individual happiness upon the whole; and that the moral evil of which for the best purposes he has permitted human creatures to be guilty, and the physical evil, which here or hereafter will be the inevitable consequence of that conduct, are necessary to produce the greatest sum of good to the system at large, and to each human being individually, considering the situation in which he has been necessarily placed in respect to the whole system. Indeed, moral evil is of no farther consequence than as it produces physical evil to the agent, or to others. And as we see in the system of inanimate nature, that general good is the result of partial and temporary evil, and that though the one follows necessarily from general laws as the result of the other, the good manifestly predominates, so in the moral system, we have a right from analogy to predict, that good will be the ultimate result of the apparent evil we observe in it: that we shall be the wiser for knowing what is to be avoided; the better for corrected dispositions; and that the power, and the wish to receive and communicate happiness, will be enlarged through each successive stage of our existence, by the experience of those that have preceded. So at least thought Dr. Priestley.

Leibnitz states some of these ideas with great force in the following passage, which I am tempted to transcribe entire from his Essais de Theodicèe; sur la Bontè de Dieu, la libertè de l’homme, et l’origine du mal, first published in 1710. (Prem. partie Sec. 7, 8, 9.)

Dieu est la premiere Raison des choses: car celles qui sont bornèes, comme tout ce que nous voyons et experimentons, sont contingentes, & n’ont rien en elles qui rende leur existence necessaire; ètant manifeste que le tems, l’espace & la matière unies & uniformes en elles-mèmes, & indifferentes à tout, pouvoient recevoir de tout autres mouvemens & figures, & dans un autre ordre. Il faut donc chercher la raison de l’existence du monde, qui est l’assemblage entier des choses contingentes; & il faut la chercher dans la substance qui porte la raison de son existence avec elle, & laquelle par consequent est necessaire & éternelle. Il faut aussi que cette cause soit intelligente; car ce Monde qui existe étant contingent, & une infinitè d’autres Mondes étant également possibles & également prétendans à l’existence, pour ainsi dire, aussi bien que lui, il faut que la cause du monde ait eu égard ou relation à tous ces Mondes possibles pour en déterminer un. Et cet égard on rapport d’une substance existante à de simples possibilités, ne peut etre autre chose que l’entendement qui en a les idées; & en déterminer une, ne peut etre autre chose que l’acte de la volonté qui choisit. Et c’est la puissance de cette substance qui en rend la volonté efficace. La puissance va à l’etre, la sagesse ou l’entendement au vrai, & la volonté au bien. Et cette cause intelligente doit etre infinie de toutes les manieres, & absolument parfaite en puissance, en sagesse & en bonté, puisqu’elle va à tout ce qui est possible. Et comme tout est lié, il n’y a pas lieu d’en admettre plus d’une. Son entendement est la source des essences, & sa volonté est l’origine des existances. Voilà en peu de mots la preuve d’un Dieu unique avec ses perfections, & par lui l’origine des choses.

8. Or cette suprême sagesse jointe à une bonté qui n’est pas moins infinie qu’elle, n’a pu manquer de choisir le meilleur. Car comme un moindre mal est une espece de bien; de même un moindre bien est une espece de mal, s’il fait obstacle à un bien plus grand: & il y auroit quelque chose à corriger dans les actions de Dieu, s’il y avoit moyen de mieux faire. Et comme dans les Mathématiques, quand il n’y a point de maximum ni de minimum, rien enfin de distingué, tout se fait également; ou quand cela ne se peut, il ne se fait rien du tout; on peut dire de même en matière de parfaite sagesse, qui n’est pas moins reglée que les Mathématiques, que s’il n’y avoit pas le meilleur (optimum) parmi tous les Mondes possibles, Dieu n’en auroit produit aucun. J’appelle Monde toute la suite & toute la collection de toutes les choses existantes, afin qu’on ne dire point que plusieurs Mondes pouvoient exister en differens temps & differens lieux. Car il faudroit les compter tous ensemble pour un Monde, ou si vous voulez pour un Univers. Et quand on rempliroit tous les tems & tous les lieux; il demeure toujours vrai qu’on les auroit pu remplir d’une infinité de manières, & qu’il y a une infinité de Mondes possibles, dont il faut que Dieu ait choisi le meilleur; puisqu’il ne fait rien sans agir suivant la suprême Raison.

9. Quelque adversaire ne pouvant répondre à cet argument, répondra peut-être à la conclusion par un argument contraire, en disant que le Monde auroit pu être sans le péché & sans les souffrances: mais je nie qu’alors il auroit été meilleur. Car il faut savoir que tout est lié dans chacun des mondes possibles: l’Univers, quel qu’il puisse être, est tout d’une pièce, comme un Océan; le moindre mouvement y étend son effet à quelque distance que ce soit, quoique cet effet devienne moins sensible à proportion de la distance, de sorte que Dieu y a tout réglé par avance une fois pour toutes, ayant prévu les prières, les bonnes & les mauvaises actions, & tout le reste; & chaque chose a contribué idéalement avant son existence a la resolution qui a été prise sur l’existence de toutes les choses. De sorte que rien ne peut être changé dans l’Univers (non plus que dans un nombre) sauf son essence, ou si vous voulez, sauf son individualité numérique. Ainsi, si le moindre mal qui arrive dans le Monde y manquoit, ce ne seroit plus ce Monde; qui tout compteé, tout rabattu, a été trouvé le meilleur par le Créateur qui l’a choisi.

According to this opinion of Leibnitz, the operative motive in the choice of the present system being the attribute of Benevolence in the Almighty, the existence of all that we term evil, is with respect to him, and his preordination of it, good; for the whole intention and motive of its permission is founded in perfect goodness guided by perfect wisdom. With respect to the finite beings, by whom evil is permitted to take place, there can be no doubt on this scheme, but the balance of existence will be happiness even to them, whenever by proper discipline they are fitted to enjoy it. Perhaps it may be doubted without infringing on the reverence due to the supreme disposer of all events, whether it would be consistent with his justice, knowingly and voluntarily to bring into existence, a sentient being, destined to be permanently miserable.

The question of Materialism, has been discussed since the disquisition of Dr. Priestley, by Mr. Cooper, who adopts the same side. Dr. Ferriar of Manchester, has rendered it dubious how far the sentient principle ought to be confined to the brain, though the facts he adduces, apply with equal force against the common hypothesis of a separate soul, acting by means of the body. The doctrine of Necessity has been opposed by Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh, but with a weakness of argument, and a petulance of language, that places his work in the lowest rank among the writers who have adopted the same side of the question. It hardly deserved the notice of so good an advocate as Dr. Crombie, who has been the latest author on the subject.

Indeed, the question must now be considered as settled; for those who can resist Collins’s philosophical enquiry, the section of Dr. Hartley on the Mechanism of the mind, and the review of the subject taken by Dr. Priestley and his opponents, are not to be reasoned with. Interest reipublicæ ut denique sit finis litium, is a maxim of technical law. It will apply equally to the republic of letters; and the time seems to have arrived, when the separate existence of the human soul, the freedom of the will, and the eternal duration of future punishment, like the doctrines of the Trinity, and Transubstantiation, may be regarded as no longer entitled to public discussion.

It is for this reason that I have paid no attention to the hypothesis of the Scotch Doctors, Reid, Beattie and Oswald, and have given no detailed account of Dr. Priestley’s examination of their writings. Indeed the perfect oblivion into which these writers have fallen, and the utter insufficiency of such young gentlemen and lady’s philosophy as they have adopted, has secured them from further animadversion. The facility with which ignorance can refer all difficulties relating to the phenomena of mind, to instinctive principles and common sense, might answer the purpose of popular declamation for a while, but it could not last; and these writers have fallen into merited obscurity, notwithstanding the national prejudice in favour of each other, so prevalent among the Literati of North Britain.

Some passages in Dr. Reid, however ought to exempt him from the contempt which is due to the common system advanced by him and his coadjutors: and his last book on the Active powers of man, is a work of undeniable merit on a very important subject, which has not yet been discussed with half the labour it so eminently deserves. The Synthesis and Analysis of our ideas, the history and process of their formation, and the detail of facts attending and connected with their rise and progress, is comparatively a new subject. Des Cartes, Buffier and Condillac among the French, Locke, Berkeley and Hartley among the English, and Hume, Reid, and Adam Smith among the Scotch, are almost the only authors worth notice who have treated it expressly, and most of them only partially. Something may be found to the purpose in Hobbes, and in the first part of Dr. Priestley’s examination of Reid, Oswald and Beattie, and more in the first volume of Zoonomia, § 14 and 15. The common sense of Dr. Reid and Co. seems to have been employed as the clavis universalis on this subject by Buffier, in his “First Truths.” Hutcheson’s theory of the Moral Sense hardly merits notice, nor does that of Dr. Price promise to add much to the stock of real knowledge. We have had enough (sat superque) of occult principles, innate principles, and instinctive principles, which illustrate nothing, but the ignorance of those who employ them.

Dr. Dugal Stewart in Scotland, and the Revd. Mr. Belsham in England, have published Elements of the Philosophy of the mind, the first inclining to the Scotch School of Metaphysics, the latter to the System of Hartley; both of them of merit in their way, particularly (as I think that of Mr. Belsham).

I cannot help thinking Dr. Darwin’s obligations to Dr. Hartley and Dr. Brown ought to have dictated more acknowledgement than he has condescended to make.

For my own part, I am persuaded that no Theory of the mind can be satisfactory, which is not founded on the history of the Body. I know of no legitimate passport to Metaphysics but Physiology. Hence I cannot estimate highly the writings of the Scotch Metaphysicians. There is one other feature also common to this School, which satisfies me of their incompetence to this subject; their slight notice, and ambiguous approbation of a man so superior as Dr. Hartley, and their utter ignorance or neglect of the theory he has advanced. On every subject relating to the phenomena of mind, Dr. Hartley’s book must be adopted as the ground work of the reasoning, or his principles must be previously and distinctly confuted.

Dr. Reid in his last work has given a critique on Dr. Hartley’s theory without understanding it, or even touching on the important points. That theory in substance is this: an external object (a peach for instance) makes an impression at once, on our organs of feeling, of sight, and of taste. The impression thus made on the extreme end of the appropriate nerve, is propagated by some species of motion along the course of nerve up to the brain, and there, and there only, perceived; for if the nerve be cut, or tied, or palsied, in any part of its course, the impression is not perceived. Motions in the brain thus produced, and perceived, are sensations: similar motions arising, or produced without the impression of an external object, are ideas. These impressions being in the instance given, simultaneous or nearly so, are associated, so that the sensation produced by the sight of a peach, will give rise to motions in the brain similar to those produced at first by the taste and the touch of it: i. e. it will suggest the ideas of taste and touch, and excite the inclination to reach and to eat the object of them. Hence sensations, ideas, and muscular motions are associated together and mutually suggest and give rise to each other. What species of motion it is, with which the nervous system is affected in this process, or whether Sir Isaac Newton’s Æther, or its modern substitute the electric fluid, has any thing to do with it or not, is no essential part of the theory, and may be adopted or rejected without prejudice to the main system. Some kind of motion there manifestly is; I think it demonstrable that it is vibratory; but of whatever kind it be, its existence in the brain is unquestionable; and the association and catenation of individual motions in the brain according to certain laws, is equally so. This is matter of fact, and it was Dr. Reid’s business if he could, to shew that neither the motions, the perceptions, or the associations took place in that organ. The general law is expressed by Hartley Prop. 20. Cor. 7.

The Metaphysics of the present day require also, a more accurate attention to the Theory of Grammar than has hitherto been paid by writers on the subject. Perhaps I do not assert too much in saying that we have had no grammarians worth notice, none who have thrown light on the principles of Grammar, but Locke and Horne Tooke. What dreadful confusion has arisen from treating words denoting what are called abstract ideas, as if they were the exponents of real individual existence? Whereas they are merely signs of artificial classification without any individual archetype. For instance in relation to the present subject, what volumes of laboured and learned trifling have been written on the Will, the Judgment, the Understanding and the other faculties as they are called, of the soul! Yet nothing is more certain than that the will, the judgment, the understanding, &c. have no existence: they are words only, the counters employed in reasoning, convenient signs of arrangement, like the plus the minus and the unknown quantity in Algebra, but no more. The time however is approaching, when Metaphysics will take rank among the Sciences that lay claim, if not to absolute demonstration, yet to an approximation to certainty sufficient for all the purposes of ethical reasoning, and all the practical duties of human life.

ERRATA.

PAGE, LINE. 23 10 from the top, For deliverery, read delivery. 84 14 -- -- ” Actes, ” Artes ” ” -- -- ” pecsinit, ” nec sinit. 90 bottom line, ” No. 6, ” No. 4. 160 2 -- -- ” Bur, ” But. 172 3 -- -- ” Biancount, ” Liancourt. 188 1 -- -- ” determing, ” determining. ” 8 -- -- ” he ” her. 214 1 -- -- For wall, read well. 218 3 from the bottom ” immorality, ” immortality. 229 2 -- -- ” 1679, ” 1767. 269 3 -- -- ” fort, ” forte. 304 8 from the bottom after, the Author, ” Dr. Coward. ” 1 from the top, ” predomininates, ” predominates. 333 7 from the top of the note for disc, ” dire. 357 12 from the top For is, ” it.

Transcriber Notes

Obvious punctuation errors and ommissions have been corrected.

The errata have been corrected, except for the one listed as on page 357, which does not exist.

Page 4 “My mother dying in in” changed to “My mother dying in”