ing, volition, memory, etc. are the feveral Modes of thinking; fo roasting of beef, roasting of mutton, roafting of pullets, geefe, turkeys, etc. are the feveral modes of meat-roafting. And as the general Quality of meat-roafting, with its several modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets, etc. does not inhere in any one part of the Jack; so neither does Consciousness, with its several Modes of fenfation, intellection, volition, etc. inhere in any one, but is the refult from the mechanical compofition of the whole Animal.

Just fo, the Quality or Disposition in a Fiddle to play tunes, with the feveral Modifications of this tune-playing quality in playing of Preludes,, Sarabands, Jigs, and Gavotts, are as much real qualities in the instrument, as the Thought or the Imagination is in the mind of the Perfon that composes 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; so that the fame individual particles do not remain in the Brain; from whence it will follow, that the idea of Individual Confcioufness must be constantly translated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for example, must not only be conscious, but conscious that it is the fame being with the particle B that went before.

We answer, this is only a fallacy of the imagination, and is to be understood in no other fenfe than that maxim of the English Law, that the King never dies. This power of thinking, felfmoving, and governing the whole Machine, is communicated from every Particle to its immediate Succeffor; who, as foon as he is gone, immediately takes upon him the Government, which still preferves the Unity of the whole System.

They make a great noife about this Individuality: how a man is confcious to himfelf that he is the fame Individual he was twenty years ago; notwithstanding the flux ftate of the Particles of matter 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 stockings, which his maid darn'd fo often with filk, that they became at last a pair of silk stockings. Now fuppofing those stockings of Sir John's endued with fome degree of Consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been fenfible, that they were the fame individual pair of ftockings both before and after the darning; and this fenfation would have continued in them through all the fucceffion of darnings; and yet after the last of all, there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stockings, but they were grown to be filk stockings, as was faid before.

And whereas it is affirmed, that every animal is conscious of some individual self-moving, felfdetermining principle; it is anfwered, that, as in a House of commons all things are determined by a Majority, fo it is in every Animal system. As that which determines the Houfe is faid to be the reason 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 the notion of a spiritual substance: We reply, that this is no greater difficulty to conceive, than that a Corporation, which is likewise a flux body, may be punished for the faults, and liable to the debts, of their Predeceffors.

We proceed now to explain, by the structure of the Brain, the feveral Modes of thinking. It is well known to Anatomifts that the Brain is a Congeries of Glands, that separate the finer parts of the blood, called Animal Spirits; that a Gland is nothing but a Canal of a great length, varioufly intorted and wound up together. From the Arietation and Motion of the Spirits in thofe Canals, proceed all the different forts of Thoughts. Simple Ideas are produced by the motion of the Spirits in one fimple Canal: when two of these

Canals difembogue themselves into one, they make what we call a Propofition; and when two of these propositional Chanels empty themselves into a third, they form a Syllogifm, or a Ratiocination. Memory is performed in a distinct apartment of the brain, made up of vessels fimilar, and like fituated to the ideal, propofitional, and fyllogistical veffels, in the primary parts of the brain. After the fame manner it is eafy to explain the other modes of thinking; as alfo why fome people think fo wrong and perverfely, which proceeds from the bad configuration of those Glands. Some, for example, are born without the propositional or fyllogyftical Canals; in others, that reafon ill, they are of unequal capacities; in dull fellows, of too great a length, whereby the motion of the fpirits is retarded; in trifling genius's, weak and fmall; in the over-refining spirits, too much intorted and winding; and fo of the rest.

We are so much perfuaded of the truth of this our Hypothefis, that we have employed one of our Members, a great Virtuofo at Nuremberg, to make a fort of an Hydraulick Engine, in which a chemical liquor refembling blood, is driven thro' elaftick chanels refembling arteries and veins, by the force of an Embolus like the heart, and wrought by a pneumatick Machine of the nature of the lungs, with ropes and pullies, like the nerves, tendons, and mufcles: And we are perfuaded that this our artificial Man will not only walk,

and speak, and perform most of the outward actions of the animal life, but (being wound up once a week) will perhaps reafon as well as most of your Country Parfons.

We wait with the utmost impatience for the honour of having you a Member of our Society and beg leave to affure you that we are, etc.

What return Martin made to this obliging Letter we must defer to another occafion: let it suffice at present to tell, that Crambe was in a great rage at them, for stealing (as he thought) a hint from his Theory of Syllogifms, without doing him the honour fo much as to mention him. He advised his Master by no means to enter into their Society, unless they would give him fufficient security, to bear him harmless from any thing that might happen after this present life.

CHAP. XIII.

Of the Succeffion of Martinus, and fome Hint of his Travels.

I

was in the year 1699 that Martin fet out on his Travels. Thou wilt certainly be very cu rious to know what they were. It is not yet time