43 2 O bje&ions to the immateriality

XXIII. As all material action ought tosolicit a material percipient; so I might herefarther insist upon what was only hinted at,> from Mr. Wollajion , at the end of N° 15.that nothing but material aSlion could solicitit ; which is an equally necessary consequenceof the materiality. And in pursuing this,it might be shewn, that the strongest passionsand emotions in the foul are excited by nomaterial action, or not by the strongest ma-terial action, contrary to plain and obviousreason, on that supposition. No one object,equally near, and equally illuminated ; norsound, equally strong, hath more material

action effected in it by its solidity; since this perceptionwould be precisely proportional to the force of the ma-terial impression, i. e. mechanical; and since therefore(the simplicity of our perceptivity being considered) thegreatest material solicitation would be only perceived, orat any rate most perceived; since, I say, these are ne-cessary consequences of matter’s thinking, and yet allfalse and contradictory to experience, it is worth observ-ing that Hobbes’s solution of perception, which is exact-ly this here given, appears thus all at one view absurdand ridiculous. For he makes perception to consist inresistance, re-action (de senfione & motu anhnali ); con-tra-pression, clm'.vma. (Leviath, cap. 1.) which plainlyinfers all that is here asserted.

impulse