220 "Thesoul a simplesubstance^

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II. Nosubjlance or being can have a natu-ral tendency to annihilation, or to become no-thing. That a being which once exists shouldcease to exist, is a real effect, and must beproduced by a real cause: but this cause couldnot be planted in the nature of any substanceor Being, to become a tendency of its na-ture ; for it could not be a free cause, other-wise it must be a Being itself, the subject ofthe attribute freedom, and therefore not theproperty of another Being-, nor a necessarycause, for such a cause is only the effect ofsomething imposing that necessity, and so nocause at all. ^Necessary causes and. pasjtvepow-

* c excluded only gross and palpable matter, spiritus, Ipl-" rit, &c.” But with submission, I think no man everbefore defended the propriety of an expression, exclusiveof the truth of it, in a philosophical controversy. If theacceptation of a word is such as determines the question?without farther argument, as in this cafe, to justify thepropriety of it then, is to make the common use of lan-guage decide in points of philosophy. If Cicero or VN£t/ had wrong ideas as to the immateriality of the foul?though they expressed these wrong ideas right, that dothnot mend the matter. The dispute between the Bishop-nd Mr. Locke, was, whether matter could think, andr»ot the classical acceptation of the word spiritus.