hat it undertakes a task which is somewhat too arduous
for our present powers,--a task which many of the ablest advocates of
Immaterialism would humbly, but firmly, decline.

In this connection, it may be useful to remark that it is only with
reference to this advanced and more arduous part of the general
argument, that such writers as Locke and Bonnet, whose authority is
often pleaded in opposition to our views, ever felt the slightest
difficulty. They were both "Immaterialists," because they both discerned
the radical difference between mental and material phenomena, and
because they both admitted the reasonableness of ascribing them,
respectively, to a _distinct substance_. But they were not convinced by
the more metaphysical arguments of those who professed to show that none
of the phenomena of "mind" could possibly be exhibited by matter, or, at
least, they declined to take that ground. That Locke was an
Immaterialist is evident from many passages in his writings. "By putting
together," he says, "the ideas of thinking, perceiving, liberty and
power of moving themselves and other things, we have as clear a
perception and notion of immaterial substances as we have of material.
For putting together the ideas of thinking and willing, &c., joined to
_substance_, of which we have no distinct idea, we have the idea of an
immaterial spirit; and by putting together the ideas of coherent solid
parts and a power of being moved, joined with _substance_, of which
likewise we have no positive idea, we have the idea of matter: the one
is as clear and distinct an idea as the other."[165] But notwithstanding
this explicit statement, he demurred to the doctrine of those who
maintained that the power of thinking could not possibly be superadded
to matter, and this because he deemed it presumptuous to set limits to
the Divine omnipotence, or to pronounce any judgment on a question of
that kind. "We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall
never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it
being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without
Revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some
systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think.... I
see _no contradiction_ in it that the first eternal thinking Being
should, if He pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless
matter, put together as He sees fit, some degrees of sense, perception,
a