PREFACE TO " PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS. ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &cl" AMONG the various Philosophical Enquiries which my younger studies had committed to writing, these few have escaped the injuries of time, and other accidents, and by the persuasion of a learned friend are now offered to the public view. Someof them may date their original at the distance of thirtyyears : Many new books have since appeared in the world, and new conversations have arisen, which have sometimes given occasion for the fresh exercise of my thoughts on these subjects. And since my more important duties have allowed me some hours of leisure and amusement, I have now and then added to these papers, which are now.grown up to this bulk and form. The subjects treated of in the two first essays, viz. Space, Substance, Body and Spirit, have no inconsiderable influence in adjusting our ideas of God and creatures, animate and inanimate beings. It isstrange that philoso- phers, even in this enlightened age, this age of juster reasoning, should run into such wide extremes in their opinions concerning space ; that while some depress it below all real being, and suppose it to be mere nothing, others exalt it to the natureand dignity of godhead. It would be a great happiness if we could all unite in some settled and undoubted opinionon this subject. The unlearned may ridicule the controversy, but men of science know the difficul- ties that attend it. I make no pretence to have cleared them all away ; but if I have said any thing here that may strike a glimpse of light into this obscure question, I shall acknowledge my felicity. Body and spirit are the two only proper substances that we know of ; and if their distinct essences can be limited and adjusted in clear ideas, it will be a happy clue to lead us into some further knowledge of the visible and invisible world, and will giveus a more particular anddistinct acquaintance with human nature, which is compounded of matterand mind. ' There are few studies so worthy of man as the knowledge of himself. Many advantages in moral sciences attend a right notion of the union of soul and body, the sensations, the appetites, the passions, and various operations which are derived thence. This bath been, I confess, a favourite employ- ment of my thoughts: Whether I have succeeded in anyof mymeditations or sentiments on this subject, 1 ¡;must leave the reader to judge. I cannot pretend that all my opinions in these matters are exactly squared to any public hypothesis. From the infancy of my studies, I began to be of the eclectic sect. Some of thèse essays are founded on the Cartesiandoctrine of spirits, though several principles in his system of the material world could never prevail upon any assent; and what other opinions of that philosophy relating to the phoenomena of heaven and earth I had imbibed in the academy, I have seen reason long ago to resign at the foot of Sir Isaac Newton. But as the twoworlds of matter and mind stand at an utter and extreme distance from each other, so the weakness of the Cartesian hypothesis of bodies and its utter demolition, does by no means draw with it the ruinof his doctrine of spirits. I am not so attached to this scheme, nor do I do plead for it as a doctrine full of light and evidence, and which lias no doubts and difficulties attending it : Afterall my studious enquiries into this noblesubject, lam far from being; arrived at anassurance of the truth of these opinions. The speediest way to
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