The late Bishop Burnet, who was no indiligent enquirer into various knowledge, seems to determine in bis Exposition of the First Article of the Church of England, ed. 3. page 34. that one of these two opinions is now the result of the thoughts of the learned (viz.) that either brutes are mere machines, or that they have reasonable souls. "It is certain," says he, "that either beasts have no thought or liberty at all, and are only pieces of finely organized matter, capable of many subtle motions that come to them from objects without them; but that they have no sensation nor thought at all about them;" or,-But he supposes, that "human nature can hardly receive or bear this notion, because there are such evident indications of even high degrees of reason among the beasts;" he concludes therefore, "It is more reasonable to imagine, that there may be spirits of a lower order ju beasts, that have in them a capacity of thinking and chusing; but that it is so entirely under the impressions of matter, that they are not capable of that largeness either of thought or liberty, that is necessary to make them capable of good or evil, of rewards and punishments; and that therefore they may be perpetually rolling about from one body to another, i. e. by perpetual transmigrations from body to body.

It is far beyond all my skill in philosophy to adjust and determine these differences, and to decide this question. Sometimes I think it is hard to allow even sensation to brutes, or to imagine that their Creator, who is perfect equity and goodness, should expose creatures, who are innocent and could never sin, to such a life of intense toil, anguish and misery, and to such cruel deaths as some of them sustain. At other times I can hardly avoid ascribing reason to them, when I observe so many signatures of all the violent and the tender passions, both in their motions, their eyes, and their countenance, and so many appearances of thought, contrivance, and design. Every ant and worm puzzles my reasonings, and baffles all my science.

But on which side soever this question be determined, I desire to lay down this bar or caution against the inference that atheists or materialists would make on this subject; and that is, that how many actions soever may be performed by brute creatures, without any principle of sense or consciousness, reason or reflection, yet these things can never be applied to human nature. It can never be said, that man may be an engine too, that man may be only a finer sort of machine, without a rational and immortal spirit. And the reason is this. Each of us feel and are Conscious within ourselves, that we think, that we reason, that we reflect, that we contrive and design, that we judge and chuse with freedom, and determine our own actions: We can have no stronger principle of assent to any thing than present, immediate, intellectual consciousness. If I am assured of the truth of any

inference whatsoever, it is because I am sure of my consciousness of the premises, and of my consciousness that I derive this inference from them. My consciousness of these premises therefore is a prior ground of assurance, and the foundation of all my certainty of the inferences. Let a thousand reasons therefore be laid before me, to prove that I am nothing but an engine, my own inward present consciousness of this proposition, that I have thoughts, that I have reasoning powers, and that I have a will and free choice, is a full evidence to me that these are false reasonings, and deceitful arguments: I know and am assured, by what I feel every moment, that I have a spirit within me capable of knowing God, and of honouring and dishonouring my Maker, of chusing good or evil, of practising vice or virtue; and that I hereby am bound to approve myself to the Almighty Being that made and governs me, who will reward me in some future state or other, according to my behaviour in this.

And as I can certainly determine this truth, with regard to my own nature, so when I see creatures round about me of the very same species with myself, I justly infer the same truth concerning them also; I conclude with assurance, that they are not mere engines, but have such reasonable and immortal spirits in them, as I find in myself. It is this inference of similar and equal causes from similar and equal effects that makes a great part of the science of mankind.

Besides, I daily hear men discoursing with me on any subject, and giving as regular and reasonable answers to my enquiries, as I do to theirs; I feel within myself, it is impossible for me do this without thinking, without the careful exercise of my intellectual and reasoning faculties superior to all the powers of mechanism; and thence I infer it is as impossible for them to practise the same discourse or conversation, without the powers of a rational and intelligent spirit, which in its own nature is neither material nor mortal. Let the question therefore which relates to brute creatures be determined to any side, it does not at all affect the nature, the reason or the religion of mankind. It is beyond all doubt that man is a creature which has an intelligent mind to govern the machine of his body, that man has knowledge, and judgment, and free choice; and unless he approve his conduct to the eyes of his Creator and his Judge in this state of mortality and trial, he exposes himself to the just vengeance of God in his future and immortal state.

It is certain, that the all-wise and all-righteous Governor of intelligent creatures, will not appoint the very same fate and period to the pious and the profane; neither his wisdom, his equity, nor his goodness, will suffer him to deal out the same blessings and the same events in every state of existence, to those who have loved him with all their souls, and those who have

hated and blasphemed his name. It is the glory and the interest of the supreme Ruler of the universe, to make a conspicuous and awful distinction in one world or another, between those who have endeavoured to serve him, and to render his majesty honourable among men, and those who have impiously abused all his favours, ridiculed his thunder, and robbed him of his choicest honours. But if philosophy should fail us here, if it were possible for creatures of such different characters to have nothing in their own natures which was immortal, yet it is a very reasonable thing, that the great Judge of all should prolong their beings beyond this mortal state, that the sons of vice might not go triumphant off the stage of existence, and that the men of vir tue might not be always opprest, nor come to a period of their being, without some testimony of the approbation of the God that made them.

ESSAY X.

Of Sun-Beams and Star-Beams.

SECT. I. Is the Ether beyond our Atmosphere a mere Vacuity?

Answ. NO; by no means: For there is not one minute spot in all the solar system, where the pupil of an eye might not be placed, and see a hemisphere of stars. Suppose the visible stars to be no more in number than the ancients counted them; viz. a thousand and twenty-six, or for the sake of a round number, one thousand only; yet the other stars visible to the naked eye, together with those which are visible by a telescope, would amount at least to many thousands more. Suppose between the least of these telescopical stars, and the visible stars of the first magnitude, the apparent difference be no greater than that of one to a hundred Suppose again, that from the least of these stars but one single ray came to one eye, then from the biggest star there must proceed a hundred rays: This would multiply the rays of all the stars in a hemisphere, which came to each eye with sensible notice, by the assistance of a telescope, at least to a hundred thousand, without standing to make a nice computation. What millions of millions of star-beams then must be for ever passing through the ethereal space, to be able to meet every eye placed in any part of this vast sphere of our world, if there be not a spot upon it so big as the pupil of an eye, but must admit of so many thousand beams; what infinite rencounters and decussations, meetings and crossings through all the parts of our solar system?

Next, let us suppose each of these pupils were turned inward toward the sun; each will meet with a far greater number of beams of light from the sun, in such a proportion as the full blaze of day is superior to the glimmering light of the starbeams. The vast addition of rays from the sun does almost infinitely increase the rencounters and decussations: Sun-beams and star beams, ever meeting in innumerable myriads throughout the ether of our solar world; since we have allowed that there is not a spot in it whence a hemisphere of stars might not be seen by night, and whence also we may not see a hemisphere of blazing day-light.

Let it be remembered also, that these motions of the particles of light both from the sun and stars, are and have been incessant ever since the creation, both by night and day: For

our night and day are only distinguished by the little globe of our earth turning its different sides toward the sun, which is an inconsiderable thing in the vast solar world, or planetary system. The reason why we do not discern the stars by day, being only the superior quantity and force of the sun-beams striking the eye, whereas the star-beams strike also constantly, but so feebly, as not to be noticed: And the reason why we do not see the sun by night, being the interposition of the earth, and the sun-beams that go beside the earth, fly from our eyes, and not toward them: But the same quantity of sun and star beams are perpetually flowing through the ether in every minute part of it, except only those few places where the planets or their satellites intercept them, and stop their motion. Now the corollaries that may be drawn from these supposititions are,

1. That since light is a body, which has been sufficiently proved by its reflexions and refractions, &c. the ether is not so void a space as perhaps some have been ready to imagine, since there is not a minute spot in it, wherein there are not many thousand bodies always moving with prodigious swiftness all manner of ways. And it may be enquired whether the planets moving through such a fluid, would not by degrees be retarded in their courses; but the next corollary perhaps may

answer it.

2. How amazing must be the subtlety and smallness of these rays, which have been shooting from the sun and stars for almost six thousand years, and yet no sensible addition is made to the bulk of our globe where they seem to be all lost, nor any sensible diminution of the sun or stars whence they all proceed? And if these corpuscles which compose this wondrous thing called light, are so inconceivably small, and the body be so rare, perhaps the planets may pass through it without sensible retardation. And yet Dr. E. Halley has told us in Miscellanea Curiosa, p. 59. he thinks he can demonstrate, that the opposition of the ether to the motion of the planets in long time becomes sensible.

3. What a surprising work of God is vision, that notwithstanding all these infinite meetings and crossings of star-beams and sun-beams night and day, through all our solar world, there should be such a regular conveyance of light to every eye, as to discern each star so distinctly by night, as well as all other objects on earth by day? And this difficulty and wonder will be greatly increased by considering the innumerable double, treble, and ten fold reflec tions and refractions of sun-beams or day light near our earth, and among the various bodies on the surface of it. Let ten thousand men stand round a large elevated amphitheatre; in the middle of it, on a black plain, let ten thousand white round plates be placed, of two inches diameter, and at two inches distance;