as well as the feet: after all, let us argue ever so long, perhaps it it is faith, alone, which can convince us, that a simple and immaterial substance can be sick (')

Some doctors will say to the madman, Friend, though thou hast no longer common sense, thy soul is no less pure, spiritual, and immortal than ours; but our soul is in good quarters, and thine otherwise. The windows of its apartment are stopped up; and it is stifled for want of air. The madman, in his calm intervals, would give them this answer: This is always your way, you are begging the question; my windows are as much open as yours, I see the same objects and hear the same words: so that my soul must necessarily either make a bad use of its senses, or itself be but a vitiated sense, a depraved quality. In a word, either my soul is naturally mad, or I

have no soul.

One of the doctors will answer, Brother, God may perhaps have created mad as well as wise souls. The madman will reply, To believe

what

(1) Our author is all of a sudden a great stickler for faith; but we are afraid it proceeds from his ignorance in philosophy. The soul has its perceptions, it is true, by means of the senses. But these perceptions may be impeded by bodily indisposition, or by an irregular construction of the internal or external organs. In that case it does not see the objects in the same manner as the soul of Plato and Aristotle; that is, it does not receive the same perceptions; and therefore it may be said to be sick and disordered as to the exercise of its faculties. See the article SOUL, where the reader will find the proofs of its being an immaterial sub

stance.

what you say, I must be madder than I am. For God's sake, you who are so very knowing, tell me wherefore is it that I am mad?

If the doctors have any sense remaining, their answer will be: We know not. Why a brain has incoherent ideas is above their comprehen- · sion; and they as little comprehend why, in another brain, the ideas are regular and connected. They will fancy themselves wise, and they are no less mad than he.

MATTER (')

WISE men on being asked what the soul is,

answer, they are entirely ignorant of it; and if asked what matter is, they give the like answer.

Professors

() M. Voltaire pretends to give under this article the opinions of the ancient philosophers in regard to matter, which he does not however attempt to refute. It is sufficient for him to know by faith that God drew matter out of nothing. He therefore supposes that the non-eternity of matter, or the creation of the world in time, is not to be demonstrated strictly by bare reasoning; but the proof of it can be taken only from revelation. And herein perhaps he is right. But he is grossly mistaken in several other points, as that, according to the light of reason only, motion must be essential to matter, and matter itself necessarily existing. Were motion essential to matter, it would imply a contradiction in terms to suppose matter at rest, which is highly absurd. Then that matter is not necessarily self-existing, evidently appears from the doctrine of a vacuum. It has been demonstrated that all space was not filled with matter; consequently there must be a vacuum. If so, it is

evidently

Professors indeed, and especially schoolmen, are perfectly versed in those things; and when they say as they have been taught, that matter is extended and divisible, they fancy that is all; but when desired to tell what this extended thing is, then they are hard put to it. It is composed of parts, say they. And these parts, of what are they composed? are the elements of those parts divisible? Then they are struck dumb or talk without end, which is equally suspicious. This almost unknown being called matter, is it eternal? So all antiquity believed. Has it, of itself, an active force? This is the opinion of several philosophers. Have they who deny it, any superior reason for their opinion? You do not conceive that matter can, intrinsically, have any property; but how can you affirm that it has not intrinsically such properties as are necessary to it? You know nothing of its nature, and yet deny it to have modes, which reside in its nature: for, after all, as matter exists, it must have a form and figure; and being necessarily figured, is it impossible that there are other modes annexed to its configuration? Matter exists, this

you

evidently more than possible for matter not to be; therefore it is not a necessary being. And some may answer, that matter may be necessary, though not necessary to be every where: but this is infinitely ab urd; for if it be no impossibility for matter to be absent from one place, it is no absolute impossibility, in the nature of the thing, that matter should be absent from any other place, or from every place. See Dr. Clarke on the Being and Attributes of God, and Wollaston's Religion of Nature Delineated.

you know; but you know it no farther than by your sensations. Alas! what avail all subtilties and sophisms, since reasoning has been in vogue ? Geometry has taught us many truths, and metaphysics very few. We weigh, we measure, we analyse, we decompound matter; but on offering to go a step beyond these rude operations, we find ourselves bewildered, and an abyss opens before us.

Forgive, I entreat you, the mistake of the whole universe, in believing matter self-existent. How could they do otherwise? how could they conceive that, what is without succession has not always been? were the existence of matter. not necessary, why exists it ? and if it was to exist, why should it not always have existed? never was axiom more universally received than this: nothing produces nothing. The contrary indeed is incomprehensible: all nations have held their chaos anterior to the divine disposition of the world. The eternity of matter never was known to do any hurt to the worship of the Deity. Religion never took offence at an eternal God's being owned as the master of an eternal matter; it is the happiness of our times to know by faith, that God drew matter from nothing; an article, which no nation had been informed of: the very Jews know nothing of it. The first verse of Genesis says, that the gods Eloïm, and not Eloi, made heaven and earth; it does not say that heaven and earth were created out of nothing.

Philo, who came at the only time when the Jews had any erudition, says, in his chapter of the creation," God being naturally good, did 66 not envy substance or matter, which of itself "had nothing good, which naturally is nothing "but

"but inertness, confusion, and disorder; but "from bad as it was, he condescended to make "it good."

The opinion of the chaos being arranged by a deity is to be met with in all the ancient theogonies. Hesiod, in saying, "the chaos was first in existence," delivered the thoughts of the whole east ; and Ovid declared the sentiments ; of the Roman empire in the following verse:

"Sic ubi dispositam quisquis fuit ille deorum Congeriem secuit."

Matter therefore was looked on in the hands of God as clay under the potter's wheel; if such faint images may be used to express the divine power. Matter being eternal should have eternal properties, as configuration, the inert power, motion, and divisibility. But this divisibility is no more than the consequence of motion, as without motion there can be no division, separation, nor arrangement; therefore motion was looked on as essential to matter. The chaos had been a confused motion; and the arrangement of the universe was a regular motion, impressed on all bodies by the Sovereign of the world. But how should matter of itself have motion; as, according to all the ancients, it has extension and impenetrability?

It cannot, however, be conceived without extension, and it may without motion. To this the answer was, It is impossible but matter must be permeable; and if permeable, something must be continally passing into its pores; where is the use of passages, if nothing passes through them?

There would be no end of replying: the system of the eternity of matter has, like all other

systems,