fly, nor in the
weight, nor in any particular wheel, of the jack, but is the result of
the whole composition.... And as the general quality of meat-roasting,
with its several modifications, does not inhere in any one part of the
jack, so neither does consciousness, with its several modes of
sensation, intellection, volition, &c., inhere in any one, but is the
result from the mechanical composition of the whole animal." And then,
in regard to the _second_ difficulty: "The parts," say they, "of an
animal body are perpetually changed, ... from whence it will follow that
the idea of individual consciousness must be constantly translated from
one particle of matter to another.... We answer, this is only a fallacy
of the imagination. They make a great noise about this _individuality_,
how a man is conscious to himself that he is the same individual he was
twenty years ago, notwithstanding the flux state of the particles of
matter that compose his body. We think this is capable of a very plain
answer, and may be easily illustrated by a familiar example. Sir John
Cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darned so
often with silk, that they became at last a pair of silk stockings. Now,
supposing those stockings of Sir John's endued with some degree of
consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been sensible
that they were the same individual pair of stockings, both before and
after the darning!"

The subject is here presented in a ludicrous point of view, and some may
doubt whether this is a legitimate method of treating it. But it should
not be forgotten that while _ridicule is no safe test of truth, it may
be the most effective exposure of nonsense and folly_.

SECTION III.

THE RELATIONS OF MATERIALISM TO THEOLOGY.

It has been generally felt and acknowledged, that the doctrine which
preserves the distinction between matter and spirit, body and soul, is
more in accordance with the truths of Natural and Revealed Religion,
than the opposite theory which identifies them; and that, on the other
hand, a profound and serious study of these truths has a tendency to
raise our thoughts above the low level of Materialism, and to direct
them to the contemplation of a higher and nobler world,--the world of
spirits.

There are many distinct points at which the theory of Materialism comes
into contact and collision with the truths both of Natural and Revealed
Religion. By a brief enumeration of