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sixty semidiameters of the latter, or nearly two hundred and forty thousand miles. The latter problem constitutes one of the mathematical papers, which at the desire of the Society I mean to annex to this volume. This alone is sufficient to reconcile any mind to the truth of the Newtonian theory,. if the general reasoning of its sublime author were not adequate to the fullest conviction. It demonstrates also, that it is not mere theory, but fact, that the centripetal force, which retains every body of the solar system in its orbit, is perfectly similar to the law of gravity on our Earth, and that I was fully authorized to draw the same conclusion from these centripetal forces as from the fall of a stone,

If I have not demonstrated therefore, that the Being, who designed, formed, and sustains this wonderful universe, is himself im

material, I have at least proved, that he acts on matter without the intervention of matter, that he acts by mere will, and that this will, without the possible supposition of any mediate

mediate bodily impulse, produces the most astonishing motions, the grandest and most beneficent effects.

Ought not this therefore to reconcile us to the supposition, that what we call mind in man acts on matter in the little world of its agency by simple volition? All the attributes of mind in man are similar to what we conceive in the supreme Mind, and it is therefore most credible, that in the subjection of a portion of matter to his mind he has also designed him to resemble himself. The phænomena of the mind's action upon the various members of the body do also strikingly resemble what we have proved of the actions of the divine will. We will,-the foot, a toe is instantly moved, apparently in obedience to the mere will, and without the consciousness of one intervening action. If the brain be the mind, or any fine subtle portion of the brain, how by a mere volition it should effect the instantaneous movement of the whole body, or whatever member of the body it pleases, is a truly wonderful, though

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though a very familiar phænomenon. potent has been every attempt to solve it by mechanic theories; the solutions have been either mere words without any correspondent ideas, or postulates without authority, which, if admitted, were insufficient to account for the fact, and fairly led to the opposite conclusion. If it be referred to some subtile fluid, the electric for instance, which in the instant of thought is emitted from the brain to the part which the will chooses to be moved, the question is left precisely where at first it was; for still simple volition is the prime agent, and volition appears not to us under any assignable attribute of body, and therefore we have not one datum, not one probable ground for supposing, that it can be an attribute of body. But it is the confessed attribute of the being which we call mind. And we have exhibited to us a very large field of probability for concluding, that without the presence of this singular being called mind, and its volitions, no bodily motions would ever take place, either in

the

the little world of our bodies, or in the vast world of the universe.

I cannot forbear to observe to you, that in the whole of what I have presented to you I have not assumed one supposition; I have followed where facts led me, I have deemed things to be different, which exhibited not one common property, I have assigned to one of the two beings, which experience reports to us, the property of mobility, to the other that of giving motion, because, so far as our experience and the evidence of our senses instruct us, we are led to this conclusion, and beyond these I have no authority for any conclusion.

ESSAY