Whether Matter may not be made by God to think is more than man
can know. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first Eternal
thinking Being, or Omnipotent Spirit, should, if he pleased, give to
certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks
fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought: though, as I
think I have proved, Bk. iv. ch. 10, SS 14, &c., it is no less than
a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own
nature void of sense and thought) should be that Eternal
first-thinking Being. What certainty of knowledge can any one have,
that some perceptions, such as, v.g., pleasure and pain, should not be
in some bodies themselves, after a certain manner modified and
moved, as well as that they should be in an immaterial substance, upon
the motion of the parts of body: Body, as far as we can conceive,
being able only to strike and affect body, and motion, according to
the utmost reach of our ideas, being able to produce nothing but
motion; so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain, or the
idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond
our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our
Maker. For, since we must allow He has annexed effects to motion which
we can no way conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we
to conclude that He could not order them as well to be produced in a
subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a subject we
cannot conceive the motion of matter can any way operate upon? I say
not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the soul's
immateriality: I am not here speaking of probability, but knowledge;
and I think not only that it becomes the modesty of philosophy not
to pronounce magisterially, where we want that evidence that can
produce knowledge; but also, that it is of use to us to discern how
far our knowledge does reach; for the state we are at present in,
not being that of vision, we must in many things content ourselves
with faith and probability: and in the present question, about the
Immateriality of the Soul, if our faculties cannot arrive at
demonstrative certainty, we need not think it strange.
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