ss contradiction, a supposing the effect to have more in it than
the cause." ... "That particular and determinate _degree of velocity_ in
a wheel, whereby it turns once round precisely in twelve hours, is that
which you call _the power of a clock_ to show the time of the day; and
because such a determinate velocity of motion is _made use of by us_ for
the measure of time, is it therefore really a new quality or power
distinct from the motion itself?" The same answer is equally applicable
to all the other examples, and it may be stated generally as amounting
to this, that "it is absolutely false in fact, and impossible in the
nature of things, that any power whatsoever should inhere or reside in
any system or composition of matter, different from the powers residing
in the single parts."[173]

The two great difficulties which adhere to the theory of Materialism,
and which must ever prove insurmountable, are these: first, to account
for the power of thinking by means of material atoms, which are
individually destitute of it; and secondly, to account for the unity and
continuity of human consciousness by means of material atoms which are
constantly undergoing flux and mutation. For the first end, recourse has
been had to the theory which ascribes the power of thinking, not to the
particles of matter, but to their order, arrangement, or organization;
and for the second, the continuous sense of personal identity is
supposed to be sufficiently accounted for by supposing that, as the
particles which compose the brain are changed, the retiring atoms leave
their share of the general consciousness as a legacy to their
successors. And both these expedients for surmounting the difficulty are
exquisitely caricatured in the "Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus," in a
chapter which is justly described as "an inimitable ridicule on Collins'
argument against Clarke, to prove the soul only a quality." The Society
of Freethinkers, addressing Martinus, propose to send him an answer to
the ill-grounded sophisms of their opponents, and likewise "an easy
mechanical explanation of perception or thinking."--"One of their chief
arguments," say they, "is that self-consciousness cannot inhere in any
system of matter, because all matter is made up of several distinct
beings which never can make up one individual thinking being. This is
easily answered by a familiar instance. In every _jack_ there is a
_meat-roasting_ quality, which neither resides in the