natural effect of believing that nothing is left to depend on ourfelves, and that we can do nothing, must be concluding that we have nothing to do; and refolving to leave every thing to that Being who (as Dr. Prieftley fays, page 303, 314) works every thing in us, by us, and for us.'

In giving his answer to these remarks Dr. Priestley proceeds thus. Dr. Price calls the doctrine of neceffity, according to which all events, moral as well as natural, are ultimately afcribed to God, a deadly potion; and yet he hesitates not to say' (in a preceding paffage which we have omitted) that he believes 66 no event comes to pafs which it would have been proper to exclude; and that, relatively to the divine plan and administration, all is right."-Now, between this doctrine, and those naked views of the doctrine of neceffity at which Dr. Price is fo much alarmed, I fee no real difference. When a person can once bring himself to think that there is no wickedness of man which it would have been proper to exclude, and that the divine plan requires this wickedness, as well as every thing else that actually takes place (which is the purport of what Dr. Price advances, and very nearly his own words), I wonder much that he fhould hefitate to admit that the Divine Being might expressly appoint what it would have been improper to exclude, what his plan abfolutely required, and that without which the scheme could not have been right, but must have been wrong.'

.

May not this view of the fubject, as given by Dr. Price, be reprefented as an apology for vice, and a thing to be shuddered at, and to be fled from, which is the language that he uses with refpect to the doctrine of neceffity? If to make vice necessary be deadly poison, can that doctrine be innocent which confiders it as a thing that is proper, and, relatively to the divine plan and adminiftration, right? The two opinions, if not the fame, are certainly very near akin, and muft have the fame kind of operation and effect."

If Dr. Price will attend to facts, he may be fatisfied that it cannot require that great ftrength and foundness of constitution that he charitably afcribes to me, to convert the doctrine of neceffity, poifon as he thinks it to be, into wholesome nourishment; and that he must have seen it in fome very unfair and injurious light. I am far from being fingular in my belief of this doctrine. There are thousands, I doubt not, who believe it as firmly as I do. A great majority of the more intelligent, ferious, and virtuous of my acquaintance among men of letters, are neceffarians (as, with refpect to feveral of them, Dr. Price himself very well knows), and we all think ourselves the better for it. Can we all have this peculiar ftrength of conftitution? It cannot surely be deadly poifon which so many persons take, not only without injury,

but

but with advantage; finding it to be, as Dr. Price acknowledges with respect to myfelf, even falutary.'

In answer to Dr. Price's remark, above given, that the belief of the doctrine of neceffity muft break every aspiring effort, and produce univerfal abjectness; Dr. Priestley here too opposes to his theoretical inferences, a kind of an appeal ad hominem; and defires him to confider whether his theory has any correfpondence with facts. Let him confider, fays he, thofe of his acquaintance who are neceffarians. To fay nothing of myself, who certainly, however, am not the most torpid and lifeless of animals; where will he find greater ardour of mind, a stronger and more unremitted exertion, or a more strenuous and steady pursuit of the most important objects, than among those whom he knows to be neceffarians? I can fay with truth (and meaning no difparagement to Dr. Price, and many others, who, I believe, unknown to themselves, derive much of the excellence of their characters from principles very near akin to thofe of the doctrine of neceffity) that I generally find Chriftian neceffarians the most diftinguished for active and fublime virtues, and more fo in proportion to their steady belief of the doctrine, and the attention they habitually give to it.'

The laft particulars relative to this fubject are contained in a Note from Dr. Price, and a fhort answer to it by Dr. Priestley. In the former Dr. Price obferves that his fentiments have been undefignedly misrepresented, when Dr. Prieftley suggests that he (Dr. Price) confiders wickednefs as a thing that is proper, and thinks the plan of the Deity abfolutely required it.'-He declares that he has never meant to say more, than that the PERMISSION of wickedness is proper, and that the divine plan required the communication of powers rendering beings capable of perverfely making themselves wicked, by acting, not as the divine plan requires (for this, he thinks, would be too good an excufe for wickedness), but by acting in a manner that opposes the divine plan and will, and that would fubvert the order of nature; and to which, on this account, punishment has been annexed.'

To this laft remark Dr. Priestley anfwers, that his friend can need no affurance that his fentiments have not been knowingly misrepresented. He obferves however that he cannot help confidering the voluntary permission of evil, or the certain cause of it, by a Being who forefees it, and has fufficient power to prevent it, as equivalent to the express appointment of it.'

From thefe laft words of our two metaphyfical difputants on this fubject, our Readers will perceive that, though they part friends, they ftill retain their respective opinions. Although we avoid taking a part in this controverfy, ftill thinking it prudent to adhere to our former fafe and humble verdict *; we will how

See Monthly Review, vol. lviii. May 1778, p. 353.

ever

ever go fo far as to fay, that we did expect to fee Dr. Price yield fomewhat to his friend's reafonings in this laft point at least. As to the main queftion-respecting liberty and neceffity-we do not wonder that perfons whofe ideas on the subject have long gone in a certain train, find even an insuperable difficulty in adopting the oppofite doctrine. There is fcarce, perhaps, a matter in the whole compafs of human difcuffion, in which it may more truly be faid-to borrow the appofite and emphatic terms of Dr. Young on a different subject—that

"One argument is balanced by another,

"And reafon reafon meets in doubtful fight, "And proofs are countermined by equal proofs." It is, in fact, the fubject, xar' εoxy, in which Reafon knits the inextricable toil,

In which herfelf is taken.'

Some Illuftrations are fubjoined, in this volume, in addition to those which the Author formerly gave at the end of his Dif quifitions. In these we meet with a general historical view of the origin and progrefs of opinions relating to the Effence of the Soul, with fome confiderations on the notion of its being an extended, though an immaterial, fubftance. In the course of this historical deduction, the Author fhews that, among the Heathen philofophers, the foul was fuppofed to be what we should now call an attenuated kind of matter, capable of divifion, as all other matter is; that this notion was adopted by the Chriftian Fathers, many of whom did not fcruple to affert that the foul, though conceived to be a thing diftinct from the body, was nevertheless properly corporeal, and even naturally mortal; that af→ terwards, however, the opinion of its being naturally immortal gained ground; and matter being then confidered as neceffarily perishable as well as impure, the doctrine of the immateriality as well as of the immortality of the foul was pretty firmly established. The idea of its being immaterial foon led to the notion of its having no property whatever in common with matter; of its having neither length, breadth, nor thickness; of its being indivifible alfo; and, finally, of its not exifting in Space. The fchoolmen added various other refinements: but the doctrine of pure spiritualism was not firmly established before Descartes.

He, fays the Author, confidering extenfion as the effence of matter, made the want of extenfion the diftinguishing property of mind or fpirit. Upon this idea was built the immaterial fyftem in its state of greatest refinement; when the foul was defined to be immaterial, indivifible, indifcerptible, unextended, and to have nothing to do with locality or motion, but to be a fubftance poffeffed of the fimple powers of thought, and to have nothing more than an arbitrary connection with an organized fyftem of matter.'

Mr.

Mr. Locke contributed greatly to lower this idea of mind or fpirit, by contending that whatever exifts muft exist somewhere, or in fome place; and by fhewing that, for any thing that we know to the contrary, the power of thought may be fuperadded by the Divine Being to an organized fyftem of mere matter; though at the fame time declaring himself in favour of the notion of a feparate foul. From this time, the doctrine of the nature of the foul has been fluctuating and various; fome ftill maintaining that it has no property whatever in common with matter, and bears no relation to space; whereas others say that it exifts in space, and occupies a portion of it, fo as to be properly extended, but not to have folidity, which they make to be the property that distinguishes it from matter.'

The Author proceeds to obferve, that the object of his late work was to prove that the doctrine of a foul is altogether unphilosophical, and unfcriptural; and that the refined and proper fpiritualism, above defcribed, is peculiarly chimerical and abfurd. Abfurd, however, as is the notion of a substance which has no property in common with matter, which bears no relation to Space, and yet both acts upon body, and is acted upon by it; it is the doctrine that, in the courfe of gradual refinement, philofophers and divines were neceffarily brought to, and is the only confiftent immaterialifm. For every other opinion concerning spirit makes it to be, in fact, the fame thing with matter: at leaft, every other opinion is liable to objections fimilar to thofe which lie against the notion of a foul properly material.'

6

As the Author had not been thought to have given fufficient attention to the doctrine of a fpirit's having extenfion, he here makes fome fhrewd remarks on that hypothefis, for which we are forry we have not room. All the embarassments attending this fyftem, as well as that of pure fpiritualism above-mentioned, are, he affirms, at once removed by his fimple theory on this. fubject. According to this, the power of thinking belongs to the brain of a man, as that of walking, to his feet, or that of fpeaking, to his tongue.'-Man, therefore, who is one being, is composed of one kind of substance, made of the dust of the earth; -when he dies, he, of course, ceases to think; but when his fleeping duft fhall be reanimated at the refurrection, his power of thinking, and his consciousness, will be restored to him.'-This fyftem likewife gives a real value to the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead, which is peculiar to revelation, on which alone the facred writers build all our hope of a future life.' In his last letter to Dr. Price, the Author thus expreffes the grounds of his zeal with refpect to this fubject. So long,' fays he, as I conceive the doctrine of a feparate foul to have been the true fource of the groffeft corruptions in the Chriftian system, of that very antichristian system which sprung up in the

5

times

times of the apoftles, concerning which they entertained the ftrongest apprehenfions, and delivered, and left upon record, the most folemn warnings, I muft think myself a very lukewarm and difaffected Christian if I do not bear my feeble teftimony against it.'

After declaring that he does not lay any ftrefs on any merely theoretical opinion, he affirms that, with refpect to the general plan of Christianity, the importance of the doctrines he contends for can hardly be rated too high. What I contend for leaves nothing for the manifold corruptions and abufes of Popery to faften on. Other doctrinal reformations are partial things, while this goes to the very root of almost all the mischief we complain of; and, for my part, I fhall not date the proper and complete downfal of what is called Antichrift, but from the general prevalence of the doctrine of materialifm.

This, I cannot help faying, appears to me to be that fundamental principle in true philofophy, which is alone perfectly confonant to the doctrine of the fcriptures; and being at the fame time the only proper deduction from natural appearances, it muft, in the progrefs of inquiry, foon appear to be fo; and then, fhould it be found that an unquestionably true philofophy teaches one thing, and revelation another, the latter could not ftand its ground, but muft inevitably be exploded, as contrary to truth and fact. I therefore deem it to be of particular confequence, that philofophical unbelievers fhould be apprifed in time, that there are Chriftians, who confider the doctrine of a foul as a tenet that is fo far from being effential to the Chriftian fcheme, that it is a thing quite foreign to it, derived originally from heathenifm, difcordant with the general principles of revealed religion, and ultimately fubverfive of them.'

In the foregoing extracts from the controverfial part of this work, we have confined ourselves to a particular queftion, and to what may be called the laft and mature refults of each of the difputants on that particular fubject. We muft not however terminate our account of this work without observing, that these are preceded by many reciprocal communications, not only on that intricate queftion, but on the nature of matter, perfonal identity, consciousness, &c. on which our two philosophical difputants exhibit many proofs of their metaphysical acumen, and franknefs.

ART. VIII. Continuation of the Account of the Bishop of London's News Tranflation of Ifaiab. Vid. laft Month's Review. Cadell.

UR learned Prelate, having confidered the nature of the alphabetical poems of the ancient Jews, proceeds to a larger and more minute explication of the circumstances which difcriminate the parts of the Hebrew scriptures that are written