The Scottish Philosophy [28]
as being very much superior, in its religious aspects, to the doctrines which had been entertained by many others. " Low and pitiful are the shifts we are put to when we would remove the Deity to the head of nature, and the head of nature out of sight." {46}
"It is not right to exalt the Deity in words and derogate from his perfections in facts. This is only paying him a compliment, and then setting aside his government in whole or in part, -- a state artifice. Cicero objects this low cunning to Epicurus, when he says, it is " verbis ponere re tollere." " Descartes, before Spinoza, had given the government of the universe to matter and motion; and Leibnitz, under a pretence of extolling the original contrivance of things, leaves the execution of all this to dead substance. According to all these schemes, we see nothing that the Deity does now: we behold only the operations of matter. This fills the mind with anxious doubts. If matter performs all that is wonderful, it catches our first admiration; and we know not where to search for the being who contrived that which we see matter executes with such dexterity." Much may be said in favor of the doctrine, that God acts in all physical action; but it is wiser not to found it on the peculiar dogma of Baxter, that matter is inactive.
But the grand aim of Baxter, in depriving matter of its powers, is to establish the immateriality, and consequent immortality, of the soul. It is a fundamental position with him, that "a power always belongs to something living." He is thus able to establish the existence of a human soul active and immortal. He maintains that " no substance or being can have a natural tendency to annihilation or become nothing," and argues that the soul must endlessly abide an active perceptive substance, without either fear or hopes of dying, through all eternity." When we find such positions coolly assumed, one almost feels justified in rejoicing that in that very age David Hume rose up to dispute all such dogmas; and that in the following age Emmanuel Kant examined narrowly the foundations both of rational theology and of rational psychology. We are certainly warranted in feeling a high gratification that Thomas Reid, a wiser man than any of these, did immediately after the time of Hume, and before the time of Kant, set about establishing natural religion and philosophy upon a safer foundation.
Baxter is prepared to follow out his principles to all their consequences, however preposterous they might appear. The phenomena of dreaming came in his way, and he gives an explanation of them. He cannot refer these dreams to dead matter, nor can it be the soul that forms the scenes present to it. His theory is, that separate immaterial beings act upon the matter of our bodies, and produce on the sensory a [Greek term] or vision, which is perceived by the active and recipient mind. He acknowledges that he knows nothing of the conditions and circumstances of these separate agencies, but he evidently clings to the idea that there is no scarcity of living immaterial beings, and asks triumphantly: "Why so much dead matter, without living immaterial substance in proportion? " " Hath not the most despicable reptile animalcule an immaterial soul joined to it?"
It ought to be added, that in his " Evidence " be adduces stronger arguments, than those derived from his favorite view of matter, in favor of the soul's immortality. He shows that if there be no state beyond the grave, our existence is incomplete, without design, irrelative; and he calls in the divine perfections as furnishing 'a certain ground of confidence that our existence will not be finally broken off in the midst of divine purposes thus visibly unfinished here," and securing that beings "becoming good for {47} something should not instantly become nothing." In arguing thus, be shows his besetting tendency to take up extreme positions; for lie maintains that in our world pain is much more extensive in its nature than pleasure, and that all bodily pleasures are merely instigations of
"It is not right to exalt the Deity in words and derogate from his perfections in facts. This is only paying him a compliment, and then setting aside his government in whole or in part, -- a state artifice. Cicero objects this low cunning to Epicurus, when he says, it is " verbis ponere re tollere." " Descartes, before Spinoza, had given the government of the universe to matter and motion; and Leibnitz, under a pretence of extolling the original contrivance of things, leaves the execution of all this to dead substance. According to all these schemes, we see nothing that the Deity does now: we behold only the operations of matter. This fills the mind with anxious doubts. If matter performs all that is wonderful, it catches our first admiration; and we know not where to search for the being who contrived that which we see matter executes with such dexterity." Much may be said in favor of the doctrine, that God acts in all physical action; but it is wiser not to found it on the peculiar dogma of Baxter, that matter is inactive.
But the grand aim of Baxter, in depriving matter of its powers, is to establish the immateriality, and consequent immortality, of the soul. It is a fundamental position with him, that "a power always belongs to something living." He is thus able to establish the existence of a human soul active and immortal. He maintains that " no substance or being can have a natural tendency to annihilation or become nothing," and argues that the soul must endlessly abide an active perceptive substance, without either fear or hopes of dying, through all eternity." When we find such positions coolly assumed, one almost feels justified in rejoicing that in that very age David Hume rose up to dispute all such dogmas; and that in the following age Emmanuel Kant examined narrowly the foundations both of rational theology and of rational psychology. We are certainly warranted in feeling a high gratification that Thomas Reid, a wiser man than any of these, did immediately after the time of Hume, and before the time of Kant, set about establishing natural religion and philosophy upon a safer foundation.
Baxter is prepared to follow out his principles to all their consequences, however preposterous they might appear. The phenomena of dreaming came in his way, and he gives an explanation of them. He cannot refer these dreams to dead matter, nor can it be the soul that forms the scenes present to it. His theory is, that separate immaterial beings act upon the matter of our bodies, and produce on the sensory a [Greek term] or vision, which is perceived by the active and recipient mind. He acknowledges that he knows nothing of the conditions and circumstances of these separate agencies, but he evidently clings to the idea that there is no scarcity of living immaterial beings, and asks triumphantly: "Why so much dead matter, without living immaterial substance in proportion? " " Hath not the most despicable reptile animalcule an immaterial soul joined to it?"
It ought to be added, that in his " Evidence " be adduces stronger arguments, than those derived from his favorite view of matter, in favor of the soul's immortality. He shows that if there be no state beyond the grave, our existence is incomplete, without design, irrelative; and he calls in the divine perfections as furnishing 'a certain ground of confidence that our existence will not be finally broken off in the midst of divine purposes thus visibly unfinished here," and securing that beings "becoming good for {47} something should not instantly become nothing." In arguing thus, be shows his besetting tendency to take up extreme positions; for lie maintains that in our world pain is much more extensive in its nature than pleasure, and that all bodily pleasures are merely instigations of