of this noble Earl; and I really believe, from all the information public or private which I have been able to obtain of his Lordship's character and conduct, that he was a man by no means deficient either in understanding or in probity.

The character of Lord Somers is drawn with that happy delicacy, to use Mr. Walpole's words upon another occafion, which finishes while it only feems to sketch..

Of the Earl of Orford, the famous Sir Robert Walpole, Mr. Walpole affirms, that fixteen unfortunate and inglorious years fince his removal, have written the eulogium. It is but justice, however, to the memory of Mr. Pelham, to fay, that the years fucceeding the peace of Aix la Chapelle,

to the end of the life of that honeft and able Minister, were neither unfortunate nor inglorious.

Mr. Walpole, in his great zeal to invalidate the title of Lady Jane Grey, which was certainly one of the weakest that ever infulted the understanding of any nation, appears to me to adopt a very dangerous maxim in politics, viz. That the power given by Parliament to King Henry VIII. to regulate the fucceffion, not being founded on national expediency, could be of no force.-Who is the proper judge of national expediency in this cafe; the Legislature, or a private individual?

Upon Mr. Walpole's account of the celebrated Lord Falkland, there is much fcope for animadverfion. A writer who could characterize this

gallant,

gallant, patriotic and virtuous nobleman, as a "weak but well-meaning man, who got knocked

on the head early in the civil war, because it "boded ill," must surely have taken some pains. to repress the emotions of sympathetic and gene rous fenfibility. That Lord Falkland was not a weak man, whatever Mr. Walpole may imagine, is fufficiently evident, as well from the various productions of his pen, as from the high reputation he acquired with his co-temporaries, for underftanding as well as integrity. It is eafily conceivable that Lord Falkland, though he had acted with Hampden and the Patriots, might believe it to be his duty to join the royal party, after the great facrifices the King had made; and though the danger to be apprehended from the fuccefs of the King's arms, and the undoubted right of Parliament to judge whether the conceffions made by the Crown, were fufficient to fecure the Conftitution from future attacks, should, I think, have inclined him to adopt a different line of conduct, it is abfurd to represent his erroneous choice as a proof of a defect of understanding. Upon that great occa. fion, men of equal abilities, knowledge, and integrity, would, doubtlefs, as in every other fituation of importance and difficulty, fee things in very different points of view. His indulgence of melancholy, and his difregard of life, in the critical and dangerous state of public affairs, after the commencement of the war, may indeed be justly confidered as extremely culpable: but fuch faults are too

rare,

rare, and proceed from motives too generous and noble, to make it neceffary to treat them with fuch contemptuous and farcaftic levity.

I know not whether any apology be neceffary to Mr. Walpole, for the freedom of animadverfion which I have indulged in these remarks-If I may prefume to judge of his feelings in this inftance by my own, he will not deem it any juft ground of offence that writings, which by the very act of publication are fubmitted to the public cenfure, fhould be confidered as the proper fubject of free criticifm. That referve and ceremony with which it is ufual to oppofe each other's fentiments in converfation would, in a more public difcuffion, appear tedious and trifling formality; and the laws of propriety and decorum are not violated in one cafe, by a deviation from those maxims which were established for the regulation of our conduct in another.

ESSAY XIX.

On MATERIALISM.

A

JUSTLY celebrated Christian Divine and Philofopher has excited the attention of the learned world in general, and the astonishment and indignation of a great part of it, by the publication of a treatife written in defence of the fyftem of Materialifm; in which he attempts to prove, contrary to the opinions which have been almost universally prevalent in the Christian Church for a long fucceffion of ages, that man does not confift of two fubftances effentially different from each other; but that the confcious principle, or what we generally term the Soul, is merely a property refulting from fuch an organical structure as that of the brain. It follows, as an immediate and neceffary confequence, from this hypothefis, that the idea of the natural immortality of the Soul is wholly fallacious, as the properties of thought and fenfation must of course be extinguished at the dif folution of that system of organized matter tó which they appertain. This opinion has long been confidered as a tenet peculiar to infidelity; and

Materialism

Materialism has been held in almoft as much ab horrence by the generality of Christians, as Atheism itself. The arguments of fo able a writer as Dr. Priestley muft, however, be entitled to a deliberate and impartial examination; and when we know that fo learned a divine, and fo acute a metaphysician, does not deem the fyftem of Materialism inconfiftent with the belief and profeffion of Chriftianity, it should incline us to abate fomewhat of our prejudice against this obnoxious opinion, and to exercise that candour in investigating the fubject, which we fhould perhaps be apt to discard as too nearly allied to criminal indifference for religion, when controverting the fuppofed herefies of Spinoza, Hobbes, or Collins.

In this Effay I propofe to exhibit a general view, both of the popular and unpopular hypothefis relative to this fubject, and of the arguments by which they are severally fupported, and to offer a few remarks upon each. And, First, the Immate rialists urge, as a proof equally clear, concise, and conclufive, as a proof nothing fhort of demonftration of the effential difference between matter and spirit, that the principle of perception, or confcioufnefs, being in its own nature a fimple, unextended, and indivifible power, muft inhere in a fimple, unextended, and indivisible fubstance; whereas, the properties of folidity and extenfion are abfolutely effential to matter, which is therefore neceffarily a difcerpible fubstance,