did not think ten years
before he was born. It must then be concluded that matter can
acquire the faculty of thinking by a certain configuration, ranging,
and motion of its parts. Let us, for instance, suppose the matter
of a stone, or of a heap of sand. It is agreed this part of matter
has no manner of thought; and therefore to make it begin to think,
all its parts must be configurated, ranged, and moved a certain way
and to a certain degree. Now, who is it that knew how to find, with
so much niceness, that proportion, order, and motion that way, and
to such a degree, above and below which matter would never think?
Who is it that has given all those just, exact, and precise
modifications to a vile and shapeless matter, in order to form the
body of a child, and to render it rational by degrees? If, on the
contrary, it be affirmed that matter cannot become a thinking
substance without adding something to it, and that another being
must be united to it, I ask, what will that other thinking being be,
whilst the matter, to which it is united, only moves? Therefore,
here are two natures or substances very unlike and distinct. We
know one by figures and local motions only; as we do the other by
perceptions and reasonings. The one does not imply, or create the
idea of the other, for their respective ideas have nothing in
common.

SECT. XLV. Of the Union of the Soul and Body, of which God alone
can be the Author.

But now, how comes it to pass that beings so unlike are so
intimately united together in man? Whence comes it that certain
motions of the body so suddenly and so infallibly raise certain
thoughts in the soul? Whence comes it that the thoughts of the
soul, so suddenly and so infallibly, occasion certain motions in the
body? Whence proceeds so regular a society, for seventy or
fourscore years, without any interruption? How comes it to pass
that this union of two beings, and two operations, so very
different, make up so exact a compound, that many are tempted to
believe it to be a simple and indivisible whole? What hand had the
skill to unite and tie together these two extremes and opposites?
It is certain they did not unite themselves by mutual consent, for
matter having of itself neither thought nor will, to make terms and
conditions, it could not enter into an agreement with the mind. On
the other hand, the mind does not remember that it ever made an
agreement with matter; nor could it be subje