244 M a st m pbc substance ,

be destroyed, without the immediate powerof God: and natural agency , or the natural

powers

of a very consistent and solid distinction, I conceive, be-tween the one and the other, as to immortality ; so far isit from being utterly inconceiveable ! Here immortalityseems wholly founded upon immateriality , which is ex-tremely wrong. Besides, an agent not moral, thoughcapable of pleasure or pain, is not capable of rewards andpunishments, by the very terms, I suppose. Moreover,brutes have not the noblest kind of activity, even here,in a state of union; viz. the command over their pastperceptions; and so this Author cannot argue for thatspecies of activity in their foul when separated. Thatwhich communicated activity to matter when in con-junction with it, cannot indeed be utterly, nor any way,inactive, when separated from it. But if this be so withrespect to the brute soul; why is it all along said withrespect to the human soul by this Author, that thoughtand perception is the joint aSlion of matter and spirit inessential union, as he chuses to express it ? He who al-lows thought to be the action, or effect of matter (thoughbut as a partial cause, or co-efficient) will hardly be ableto prove the necessary activity of separate spirits. Heconcludes, " What heightens the absurdity of this way“ of thinking is, that in imagining the fouls of brutes“ to be immaterial, men must necessarily distinguish »" great variety of them both in nature and degree; one“ fort for birds, another for beasts, and another for fishes." And these must be all subdivided again into very dif-" ferent species of immaterial fouls, according to the

" different