te from the body, and
entirely independent of it. How beautiful a proof of the infinite
difference between _spirit_ and _matter_.'" It is a proof that we would
be slow to adduce, for the facts are doubtful as well as obscure; but,
for our present purpose, it is not necessary either to admit or to deny
the truth of these facts; it is sufficient to say that the phenomena of
Mesmeric sleep and the visions of Clairvoyance are not more inconsistent
with the doctrine of an immaterial soul than the more familiar, but
scarcely less mysterious, phenomena of natural sleep and common dreams.
It is, indeed, not a little remarkable that the profound and sagacious
Butler expressed himself in the following terms, long before the
phenomena of Magnetism and Clairvoyance were spoken of as subjects of
scientific study: "That we have no reason to think our _organs_ of
sense _percipients_ ... is confirmed by the experience of dreams, by
which we find we are at present possessed of a latent, and what would
otherwise be an unimagined, unknown power of perceiving sensible
objects, in as strong and lively a manner, _without our external organs
of sense as with them_."[159]

On the whole, we think it clear that neither by Phrenology, which adds
merely to the number of our material "organs," nor by Mesmerism, which
adds _one_ to the number of the "influences" by which we are affected,
nor by Clairvoyance, which adds the phenomena of _magnetic_ to those of
_natural_ sleep, is the state of the question materially altered from
what it was before these additions were made to Physiological
speculation. And hence those who are well versed in our older writers on
the doctrine of "spirit" and "matter," will be sufficiently furnished
with weapons for repelling the more recent assaults of Materialism. If
any one has read and digested the Treatises of Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his
replies to Dodwell, Collins, and Leibnitz; the "Free Discussion" between
Dr. Priestley and Dr. Price; the "Examen du Materialisme" by Bergier, in
reply to the "Systeme de la Nature;" and the writings of Andrew Baxter,
Drew, Ditton, and others, on the same subject, he will find little
difficulty in grappling with the arguments of Comte, Atkinson, and
Martineau. He will see at once that the main, the fundamental question,
is not materially affected by the advances which have been made in
Physiological discovery. These discoveries may have extended our
knowledge respecting _the relations