And to examine the justice of another imputed imperfection of revelation, namely, the indefinite period of the day of judgment, we shall further quote the observations of the same ingenious commentator, from pp. 89, 90. Many "probable reasons" may be mentioned, why the precise time of this event was left so undetermined, or rather entirely unknown." "For as the gospel has fixed the time of judgment to the coming of Christ, and gives men no promise or expectation of a retribution before that period, to have determined this coming to any particular æra, would have been attended with two manifest inconveniences. First, the more remote any ages of men were from the period foretold, they would consider themselves as so much the less interested in its approach; and, therefore, the expectation of it would have a proportionably smaller influence upon their apprehensions and practice. Secondly, the nearer the world drew to its conclusion, men would be more strongly affected, and at last thrown into the utmost confusion. The springs of human action would by degrees lose their force, the business of the world come to a stand, while all were intent upon the approaching revolution. These inconveniences are sufficiently provided against by the wisdom of heaven. For as we are cautioned to beware of false prophets, who should pretend to tell us that Christ is in this or that place, and immediately to appear; so we are warned against another abuse, proceeding from a contrary cause, namely, a presumption of its delay, by which too many would be led to set at defiance an event which they thought afar off, and long in coming. Matt. xxiv. 48. And further, the suddenness with which it will take place is intended to prevent that disorder in human affairs which the apprehension of its near but slow approach would at any time occasion.-The uncertainty of this event bears a near resemblance to the natural uncertainty of human life, and seems calculated to produce the same effect. He who tells me that I am mortal, tells me that death is near, that life is short and the days few, that I may die soon or suddenly, that I should be continually expecting the end of life, and not be surprised if it should take place to-morrow. And he is equally a true prophet, whether I die the next day or live beyond fourscore. Is not this the language of Scripture, with respect to the coming of Christ ?" These remarks may, perhaps, be thought out of place, or foreign to the The really interesting question, therefore, arises, How was this spurious doctrine foisted into the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and at what period was the simplicity of Christianity destroyed by its introduc tion? It was the gift of Paganism to Revelation in that early defection of the Eastern and Western churches from the simple tenets taught by our Saviour and his primitive disciples; and the doctrine of Immateriality was the axis on which the doctrines of Purgatory, Transubstantiation and the Hypostatic Union" revolved, and without which these ecclesiastical mints could not have been worked to any pecuniary advantage. On this was founded the institution of masses and saintly shrines; and was, indeed, the soul of that funding system of priestcraft, which ultimately saddled tive labour on the industry of the such a grinding weight of unproducpeople. In this subtle fluid was the credulity of the people steeped, and their whole faith was pinned on that crafty motto of monastic art-" Piu ci metti, piu meriti"-the more you give, the more's the merit! Dr. Priestley's able pedigree of this natural child of Heathenism is well known, and here we shall leave it; for no one, tolerably read in history, is ignorant how much more this doctrine owes its birth and existence to Plato and Eneas than to Christ or his apostles. This controversy, both in its physiological and metaphysical relations, has been often agitated in Europe. Our limits will not, however, allow us to sketch any particular outline of the systems which have successively supplanted each other. This will be found to have been performed in a very full and able manner by Dr. Barclay, in the 3rd and 4th chapters of his volume (the last article in our notice). The third chapter details the opinions of those who, since the revival of learning in Europe, have treated of the causes of organization, and ascribed the principal phenomena of life to organic structure. These comprise the distinguished names of Paracel sus, Fray, Darwin, Leibnitz, Priestley, Haller, Buffon, Needham, Maupertuis, Robinet, Blumenbach, Gassendi, Cuvier, Lawrence, Cabanis, Des Cartes, &c. The 4th chapter particularizes the opinions of those who suppose a living internal principle distinct from the body, and likewise the cause of organization; comprehending the celebrated names of Harvey, Willis, Hunter, Abernethy, Deleure and Grew. To enter into any separate examination of these various theories is impossible: they compose a Babel of hypotheses; and, as Dr. Barclay remarks in his summary view, all physiological writers, both ancient and modern, seem to be agreed, that the causes of life and organization are utterly invisible, whether they pass under the name of animating principles, vital principles, indivisible atoms, spermatic powers, organic particles, organic germs, formative appetencies, formative propensities, formative forces, formative minuses, pre-existing monads, semina rerum, plastic natures, occult qualities, or certain unknown chemical affinities! The theological part of this controversy, as connected with our own country, forms no part of the present review; and, indeed, a most impartial history of it has been compiled by Archdeacon Blackburne, in his "His torical View of the Controversy concerning an Intermediate State, and the Separate Existence of the Soul; 2nd ed., 1772." We pass over altogether the many absurd theories which might amuse our readers, though not instruct them; and which have abounded in the last century, from the opinions of Bishop Berkley to animal magnetism, inclusive, and not forgetting the hypothesis of the celebrated modern French chemist, Delametherie, who affirms that the Deity is nothing more than a crystallization! Bishop B. pretended to disbelieve the evidence of his senses, and to doubt the existence of matter: he contended, that sensible, material objects, as they are called, are not external to the mind, but exist in it, and are nothing more than impressions or shadows made upon it by the immediate act of the Deity. To reason with any of these visionists would be to fall to a level with them in absurdity. The pens and ink with which they wrote their paradoxes, were their refutation; as the works of those ultraorthodox which contend against the use of reason in matters of religion, by their very arguing disprove the position. We shall confine ourselves, therefore, to the question at issue, as relating to the principle of vitality in man considered as matter and a body. And, to arrive at a simple definition, we shall borrow the definitions of an author whose work, though on a department of Natural History of confined interest, we have lately read with great admiration of his power of abstract reasoning, and of the truly philosophical liberality with which, though an Immaterialist, he states the arguments of Materialism. * "Particles of matter when collected together in a mass of any degree of size or compactness form a body. An organic body is a mass of matter of which the component molecules are or have been in motion on being collected together by intussusception. Such a body is said to live or to have lived. By the term life we would express that faculty which certain combinations of material particles under a determinate form, and of drawpossess, of existing for a certain time ing while in this state into their composition, and assimilating to their own nature, a part of the substances which may surround them, and of restoring the same again under various forms." Mr. Macleay goes on to observe : "How this faculty is acquired, what is its immediate cause, or, in other words, ate causes between it and the Primary whether there may not be several mediCause, are questions to the solution of which we are totally incompetent. It is to the organic body what the expansion of steel is to a watch, or that of steam is to the engine; but if we ask what is expansion? what is life? we can get no answer but a recital of their effects." We have thus borrowed this clear description of man as the most con Hora Entomologicæ: or, Essays on the Annulose Animals; by W. S. Macleay, Esq., A. M. F. L. S. cise in its language and idea we ever "Far as Creation's ample range extends, Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass." We might give endless quotations, were It is the study of our intellectual nature which we term metaphysical science; the study of our organic nature, physiology. The great physiological question at issue is, respecting the cause of the vital phenomena, whether the effect of a certain organisin of the materials which compose the visible structure, or a principle totally distinct: the metaphysical question, whether the sentient principle, or faculty of thinking, can be produced out of the powers and various modifications of matter, or is a something superadded to matter. Hence arose, among the ancients, those subtle, scholastic questions relative to final causes, which have continued to the present times, and as long as this world exists will afford matter for dis- Previous to the days of We have thus distinguished the opini ons of metaphysicians into Materialism and Immaterialism. We have shewn the unpopularity of the former theory to arise very much from its contradic tion of the popular religion of the world, both Pagan and Roman Catho lic, wherever they have been " the law of the land;" and in later times, it owes much of its obnoxious character to being the basis of the celebrated system of Spinoza, and the doctrine of many of the sceptics of the last century. A refutation of Spinonism and Atheism cannot be needed in our pages. Atheism, were it cultivated as a system, might indeed merit the notice of a legislature, since every tie of society is destroyed and all the motives of But the works virtue buried in "annihilation, the sanctuary of sin." of Boyle, Bently, Cudworth, Clarke, Tucker and Paley, are barriers against the inroad of this black infidelity, and have demonstrated the material world, 66 one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." The advocates of Materialism may be subdivided into two parties; viz. those who believe in the authority of revealed religion, and those who do not. The Christian Materialist usually believes in the immateriality of the Deity, but contends that the sentient, cogitative principle in man is not distinct from the body, but the result of its organization. The Deistical Materialists appear to verge closely on Spinonism, and argue, that, as the powers of perception and thought have never been found but in conjunction with a certain organized system of matter, therefore those powers usually exist in and depend on such a system. They have been nearly all unbelievers in a future state. Surely, therefore, there needs no comparison of the superior sanctions to virtue in the gospel scheme and of the glorious superiority of that divine illumination which lights us through the dark valley of the shadow of death. Ignorance and prejudice may, and indeed do, assert, that the ChristianMaterialist, proceeding on the same reasoning with the Sceptical Materialist, would necessarily be subject to the same contempt of revelation and futurity, and which, if pushed to its extent, would lead to the Atheist's creed of a material Deity; but this by no means follows, and we shall give the present controversy in evidence. We strongly contend, on behalf of Christian Materialists, that, as far as revelation is concerned, their opinions make not a shadow of difference. We do not enter into the various theories of Immateriality, which, indeed, is a term for a something of which no one has yet given any distinct explanation. We are ourselves strongly inclined to the hypothesis of Mr. Locke, who thought there was some unknown principle superadded to matter to confer the faculty of thinking; but we do not wish to obtrude our own individual speculations on our readers: we only wish to inculcate Mr. Locke's liberal accompaniment, that these metaphysical riddles have no right to be obtruded as creeds, and that, however that faculty may exist, "it cannot be in any created being but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator." See Essay on H. Und. B. iv. Ch. 3. But to exhibit the same evident truism from these metaphysical alarmists themselves, we will quote the following accidental and simple slip of the pen in the very first page of the Quarterly Review, and after which its scurrility requires no other antidote :"It can scarcely be necessary to remind our readers, in limine, that the nature of the living principle is among the subjects which are manifestly beyond the reach of human investigation. The effects and the properties of life are indeed obvious to our senses through the whole range of organized creation; but on what they depend, and how they are produced, never has been discovered, and probably never will"! And again, p. 20: "Immateriality does not necessarily imply immor tality: they are not convertible terms." So also Mr. Rennell, in his Remarks, p. 113: "The principle of volition, because it is immaterial, is not, therefore, of necessity, immortal." These admissions, however, were necessary, since they knew that any argument used to prove the necessary self-existence of the soul, went to prove its preexistence-an absurdity too great for even them to undertake, skilled as they are in maintaining paradoxes. Now, if immateriality be not necessarily immortal, common sense must perceive that it cannot be a requisite or material part of the creed of a Christian; or at all events, that it is equally subject with matter to decay and perish; since, by their confession, immateriality may have a beginning and an end, and yet man attain immortality. Where, then, is the object of dispute, or where any preference of the two opinions? And even had there not been this luckless admission, who would be the sceptic;-the Immaterialist, who reckoned on futurity as the necessary result of an imperishable vital principle; or the Unitarian Christian Materialist, who placed his hope in the power and benevolence of his Creator, and on the fact of one Man, Christ Jesus, having actually risen from the dead? We think St. Paul has answered this: "If Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins, and those also who are fallen asleep in Jesus are perished."-" But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." Did St. Paul believe in futurity on any other trust than that of the resurrection of our Saviour? Did he believe in an intermediate state of the soul, previous to the resurrection of the body? And how many sublime passages in his writings are destroyed by the supposition of an intermediate state! The Christian Materialist founds his hope on the immediate power of the Deity; the Immaterialist, on the subordinate agency of a supposititious vital principle; yet the latter denounces the former as a sceptic! Mr. Macleay, to whose candour we have before appealed, has stated our own opinions on this head with great force. necessary immortality of the human soul is a dogma as much in opposition to the idea of Divine Omnipotence, as its necessary mortality. Without the "The Review Recent Controversy on Materialism. assurances of revelation, the immortality of the soul could never have been ascertained; nay, perhaps might have been reasonably doubted."-P. 479. We fear we have entered too fully into the general question to admit of any quotations from the different works, the particular subject of our review. Of Mr. Lawrence's volumes, we cannot sufficiently express our praise of the scientific knowledge and love of truth which everflows every page; and it is lamentable that the deadly poison of bigotry should have been employed against the works of an author, which bid fair to redeem our character in Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. The lectures on the natural history of man are of course more interesting to the general reader. Mr. Rennell may term the following sentence Atheism, from p. 30 of the two Introductory Lectures, but we do not: "From the modifications of structure, and its constant relation to the wants, habits and powers of animals, there arises the strongest evidence of final purposes, and therefore the strongest proof of an INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE." We shall not, however, reflect on the understanding of our readers by further quoting numerous sentences on " that Exalted Power and Wisdom, in testimony of which all nature cries aloud," (to use the words of Mr. Lawrence, p. 52 of his Physiology,) and repeated in language too fervid, pious and eloquent to admit a doubt of his sincerity. He has no where, in matter, that we can discover, impugned the truth of revelation: and whatever may be his opinions, (and they are certainly of comparative insignificancy to the subject of his works,) we are sure Mr. Lawrence has too much common sense to believe that Christianity can be disposed of in a parenthesis. We certainly can discover a detestation of priestcraft, which, whatever may be the policy or propriety of disseminating it through the medium of his Lectures, does honour to him in an age where talent and political prostitution are such saleable commodities in the market of corruption. But we do confess we are somewhat puzzled to discover the relevancy of a note on the Game Laws, which Mr. Lawrence introduces as an alterative to the subject; unless, indeed, it had been a short biographical notice of some of those unfortunate young Of the part which Mr. Abernethy VOL. XVII. |