How Martinus endeavoured to find out the feat of the foul, and of his correfpondence with the Free-thinkers.

JN this defign of Martin, to investigate the diseases of the mind, he thought nothing fo neceffary as an enquiry after the feat of the foul; in which, at firft, he laboured under great uncertainties. Sometimes he was of opinion, that it lodged in the brain, fometimes in the ftomach, and fometimes in the. heart. Afterwards he thought it abfurd to confine that fovereign lady to one apartment, which made; him infer, that the fhifted it according to the feveral functions of life: the brain was her ftudy, the heart her ftate-room, and the ftomach her kitchen. But as he faw feveral offices of life went on at the fame time, he was forced to give up this hypothefis. alfo. He now conjectured it was more for the dignity of the foul to perform feveral operations by her little minifters, the animal fpirits, from whence it was natural to conclude, that the refides in different parts according to different inclinations, fexes, ages, and profeffions. Thus in Epicurus he feated her in the mouth of the ftomach, philofophers have her in the brain, foldiers in their heart, women in their tongues, fidlers in their fingers, and rope dancers in their toes. At length he grew fond of the glandula pinealis diffecting many fubjects to find out the different figure of this gland, from whence he might difcover the caufe of the different tempers in mankind. He fuppofed, that in factious and reftlefs-fpirited people, he fhould find it fharp and pointed, allowing no room for the foul to repofe herself; that in quiet tempers it was flat, fmooth, and soft, afford

ing to the foul, as it were, an eafy cushion. He was confirmed in this by obferving, that calves and philofophers, tygers and statefmen, foxes and fharpers, peacocks and fops, cock-fparrows and coquets, monkeys and players, courtiers and fpaniels, moles and mifers, exactly resemble one another in the conformation of the pineal gland. He did not doubt likewise to find the fame resemblance in highwaymen and conquerors: in order to fatisfy himfelf in which, it was, that he purchased the body of one of the firft fpecies (as hath been before related) at Tyburn, hoping in time to have the happinefs of one of the latter too, under his anatomical knife.

We must not omit taking notice here, that these equiries into the feat of the foul gave occafion to his firft correfpondence with the fociety of Freethinkers, who were then in their infancy in England, and so much taken with the promising endowments of Martin, that they ordered their fecretary to write him the following letter.

To the learned Inquifitor into nature, MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS: the fociety of Free-thinkers greeting.

IT

Grecian Coffee-house, May 7. 'T is with unfpeakable joy we have heard of your inquifitive genius, and we think it great pity that it fhould not be better employed, than in looking after that theological non-entity commonly called the. foul: fince, after all your enquiries, it will appear you have loft your labour in feeking the refidence

of fuch a chimera, that never had being but in the brains of fome dreaming philofophers. Is it nor demonstration to a perfon of your fenfe, that, fince you cannot find it, there is no fuch thing? In order to fet fo hopeful a genius right in this matter, we have fent you an answer to the ill-grounded fophifms of thofe crack-brained fellows, and likewife

an

an eafy mechanical explication of perception or thinking.

One of their chief arguments is *, that felf-confcioufnefs cannot inhere in any fyftem of matter, because all matter is made up of feveral distinct beings, which never can make up one individual thinking being.

This is cafily anfwered by a familiar inftance. In every jack there is a meat-roafting quality, which neither refides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel of the jack, but is the refult of the whole compofition: fo in an animal, the felf-consciousnefs is not a real quality inherent in one being, (any more than meat-roafting in a jack,) but the refult of feveral modes or qualities in the fame fubject. As the fly, the wheels, the chain; the weight, the cords, &c. make one jack; fo the feveral parts of the body make one animal. As per ception or confcioufnefs is faid to be inherent in this animal; fo is meat-roafting faid to be inherent in the jack. As fenfation, reafoning, volition, mes mory, &c. are the feveral modes of thinking; fo roafting of beef, roafting of mutton, roafting of pullets, geefe, turkeys, &c. are the feve ral modes of meat-roafting. And as the general quantity of meat-roafting, with its feveral modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets, &c. does not inhere in any one part of the jack; fo neiz ther does confcioufnefs, with its feveral modes of fenfation, intellection, volition, &c. inhere in any one, but is the refult from the mechanical compofition of the whole animal..

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Juft fo, the quality or difpofition in a fiddle to play tunes, with the feveral modifications of this tune-playing quality, in playing of preludes, farabands, jigs, and gavotts, are as much real qualities in the inftrument, as the thought or the imaginas

This whole chapter is an inimitable ridicule on Collin's arguménté against Clarke, to prove the foul only a quality, War bái bón a

tion is in the mind of the perfon that compofes them.

The parts, fay they, of an animal body are perpetually changed, and the fluids which feem to be the fubject of consciousness, are in a perpetual circulation; fo that the fame individual particles do not remain in the brain; from whence it will follow, that the idea of individual consciousness must be conftantly tranflated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for example, must not only be confcious, but confcious that it is the fame being with the particle B that went before.

We anfwer; this is only a fallacy of the imagination, and is to be understood in no other sense than that maxim of the English law that the King never dies. This power of thinking, felf-moving, and governing the whole machine, is communicated from every particle to its immediate fucceffor; who as foon as he is gone, immediately takes upon him the government, which still preserves the unity of the whole fyftem.

They make a great noife about this individuality: How a man is confcious to himself that he is the fame individual he was twenty years ago; notwithstanding the flux ftate of the particles of mat, ter that compofe his body. We think this is capable of a very plain anfwer, and may be eafily illuftrated by a familiar example.

Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted ftockings, which his maid darned so often with filk, that they became at laft a pair of filk stockings, Now, fuppofing thofe ftockings of Sir John's endued with fome degree of confcioufnefs at every particular darning, they would have been fenfible, that they were the fame individual pair of stockings both before and after the darning; and this fenfation would have continued in them through all the fucceffion of darnings and yet, after the laft of all, there was not perhaps one thread left of the

first pair of stockings, but they were grown to be filk ftockings, as was faid before.

And whereas it is affirmed, that every animal is confcious of fome individual self-moving, felf-determining principle; it is anfwered, that, as in the House of Commons all things are determined by a majority, fo it is in every animal fyftem. As that which determines the House, is faid to be the reafon of the whole affembly; it is no otherwise with thinking beings, who are determined by the greater force of feveral particles; which, like fo many unthinking members, compofe one thinking system.

And whereas it is likewife objected, that punishments cannot be just that are not inflicted upon the fame individual, which cannot fubfift without he notion of a spiritual substance: We reply, that this is no greater difficulty to conceive, than that a corporation, which is likewife a flux body, may be pu nifhed for the faults, and liable to the debts, of their predeceffors.

We proceed now to explain, by the ftructure of the brain, the feveral modes of thinking. It is well known to anatomifts, that the brain is a congeries of glands, that feparate the finer parts of the blood, called animal fpirits; that a gland is nothing but a canal of a great length, varioufly intorted and wound up together. From the variation and motion of the fpirits in thofe canals, proceed all the different forts of thoughts. Simple ideas are produced by the motion of the fpirits in one fimple canal; when two of thefe canals difembogue themfelves into one, they make what we call a propofi tion; and when two of thefe propofitional channels empty themselves into a third, they form a fyllogifm, or a ratiocination. Memory is performed in a dif. tinct apartment of the brain, made up of vefiels fi milar, and like fituated to the ideal, propofitional, and fyllogiftical veffels, in the primary parts of the After the fame manner, it is eafy to explain

brain.