ART. IX. Immaterialism delineated; or, of Things. By Jofeph Berington.

1779.

a View of the first Principles 8vo. 5 s. Robinson, &c.

Ton HE anonymous Author of the Letters on Materialism, and on Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind,' addreffed to Dr. Priestley, and of which our Readers will find an account in our 56th volume [February, 1777, page 81], has here chofen to make himself known as the Author of that performance. As he ftill thinks that the promulgation of the doctrine of Materialism may prove detrimental to many; though he conceives that it may be approved of by a philofopher, without any practical detriment: he here again enters the lifts, after having before, as he fays, fingly provoked conteft with an enemy, too powerful and too well verfed in the wily arts of controversy.' He confiders himfelf (in his Preface, dated May 1778) as having imprudently engaged with fuch an antagonist; and as having the misfortune ftill to fee himself quite alone, and unfupported. He enhances the perils of his fituation, by exhibiting the following fketch of the literary and philofophical character of his opponent.

The character of the man, who now ftands forth the ftrenuous advocate for Materialifm, is of a magnitude in the literary world, fufficient to ftamp a dignity on any fubject. Dr. Priestley, from the multiplicity, the ingenuity, the importance of his researches and publications, has justly acquired a reputation, which every lover of fcience muft look up to with gratitude and respect. The furprifing verfatility of his genius, juftly levelled and proportioned almoft to every literary pursuit, at once evinces his vaft application, and is in my eye a practical refutation of the system he now offers to fupport. It can never be, that the powers of matter may rife to the difplay of such a mental phenomenon!-But my adiniration is not blind; I fee errors in his reasoning, which I have and will endeavour to expofe-To err is the common lot of humanity-Nor will I hefitate to repeat that, as a Chriftian philofopher, I highly condemn many parts of his writings, and his too free deviations from the religious tenets of mankind.'

The Author profeffes himself, and feemingly exults in being a member of the Roman Catholic Church; which he represents as being, in these latter times, by no means intolerant, or averse to freedom of inquiry, as it has been generally represented, and as it might have been in former times, and as it may even now be with respect to fome individuals. Though he thus approves of this freedom of inquiry, our Philofopher declares his unhefitating affent to the myfterious doctrines, which he is taught to

* Mr. B. is faid to be of the priesthood. REV. July, 1779. Ꭰ .

tevere

revere as facred,' and which he pretends not to fathom,' and which, finally, his Church holds out to him:'- a widely extended body of men' (who think for the reft) which even his reafon tells him must be a furer guide to truth, than the dictates of his own individual judgment.'

In our religious modes of thinking, fays he, in a letter at the end of this work, addreffed to Dr. Priestley, you and I are, I believe, farther feparated, than in particular points of philofophy. Education firft made me a Catholic, and the most rational conviction has finally fettled my belief. Were this a proper occafion, which it is not, I could with pleasure delineate to you the philofophy of my religion.'-The Author tells us that he has, for fome years paft, meditated a work of this character: but we are forry at finding him declaring that this fingular defign will never be realifed.-It would indeed be a curiofity.

We apprehend, however, that the Author has given us a fpecimen of the philofophy of his religion, in treating of the prefence of the fentient principle to its body; or in anfwer to Dr. Priestley's objection to the Immaterialists that, on their hypothefis, the fentient principle is really nowhere, or that it is no more in the animal body, than it is in the planet Jupiter.'On this occafion he declares that, according to his idea of prefence, he fees no great difficulty in the conception that the fame numerical body may be even in many places, at the fame inftant

of time.'

Our metaphyfical Catholic attempts to extenuate the apparent abfurdity of this pofition, by a definition or defcription of prefence; which, as well as existence, is, according to him, attested only by the action of bodies on each other, or on a fentient being. To exift near, or to be prefent, is to exert on other bodies an immediate, or a nearly immediate action.'-Accordingly, Prefence is fuch a pofition that therefrom can be exerted a quick impreffion on the ambient bodies. Such prefence is more or less intimate, the more immediate the action is. As I can act more immediately on the bodies in my chamber, than on those fituated at the outfide of my windows, I fhall fay, I am nearer placed, or more prefent to the firft than the fecond. In fact, when action is immediate, nothing can be conceived more intimate than the prefence of fuch bodies; it generates the phenomenon of contact, which of all pofitions is the moft immediate. Prefence therefore, like existence, is not formally the effect of action, but it is such a state or pofition that action or immediate impreffion is the direct confequence.

The interefts of the Author's fyftem lead him to deny the reality of space. To his apprehenfion, it is nothing real.'Bodies co-exift in a general order of reference or relation to each other, and this it is which gives rife to the phenomenon we term Space. He confiders the idea of it as a mere illufion of

the

the human mind, unhabituated to fet bounds to its imaginative powers. And yet he is obliged to own that we cannot even conceive the annihilation or non-existence of space; because the idea of its capacity of receiving bodies will always recur to us.

For a further explanation of the Author's fyftem with respect to the first principles of things, we must refer our metaphyfical readers to the work itself. Our other readers will be content with this fpecimen. We fhould obferve, however, that the latter half of this performance is appropriated to an examination of Dr. Priestley's Difquifitions on Matter and Spirit; in which the Author copies the titles of the fections as they ftand in that work, and regularly treats of the fubjects difcuffed in them but for his reafonings on these contested subjects we must likewife refer the reader to the work at large.

ART. X. Reflections on the Doctrine of Materialism, and the Application of that Doctrine to the Pre-existence of Chrift: Addreffed to Dr.

Priestley, &c. By Philalethes Rufticans. 12mo. 3 s. fewed.

Flexney. 1779.

THIS anonymous Opponent evidently poffeffes a greater fhare

of acuteness, as well as knowledge of the fubject in debate, than the generality of Dr. Prieftley's anfwerers; though he, too, mixes perfonalities with his reafonings, and confiders the argumentum ad hominem as not always the worst argument, if unenvenomed with malignity.' There feems, however, no neceffity, on a serious subject, for that air of irony or raillery, which occafionally appears in these pages; and for which the Author, in a careless way, condefcends to apologife, and, at the fame time, to take merit to himfelf, for not being chargeable with an infolent affectation of fuperiority, and coarfe language, unenlivened by a fingle grain of humour;' judging that, to give life and fpirit to the dulnefs of theological controversy, a little raillery perhaps is not amifs.'

The most material part of this performance is that in which the Author follows Dr. Prieftley in the objections advanced in the Difquifitions, against the doctrine of an intermediate state, on the authority of various paffages adduced from the fcriptures. He not only confiders the moft material of thefe, to which he gives a different fenfe; but likewife produces, in his turn, fome additional texts, of which Dr. Priestley, he fays, has prudently taken no notice;' and from the whole he concludes that the doctrine of the foul's immortality, and confequently of an intermediate ftate, is the doctrine of the fcriptures.

ART. XI. A Review of the Doctrine of Philofophical Neceffity, illuftrated by Dr. Prieley; in which is evidently demonftrated the Erro neoufness and Incongruity of his Doctrine, &c. By the Rev. Joseph Fisher, &c. I 2mo. I s. 6 d. Nicoll. 1779.

HOUGH this Author, we doubt not, undertook the pre

Trent review of Dr. Prieftley's doctrine of Philofophical Ne

ceffity, from the best motives, and, in general, treats his Antagonist with temper and decency; we muft obferve that his performance is indigefted and confufed, and carries marks of hafte in the compofition of it. Further, whatever degree of knowledge he may poffefs on other fubjects, we must take the liberty of informing this Author, that he knows very little of the philofophical doctrine of neceffity, as laid down by Dr. Priestley; the erroneoufnefs and incongruity of which he, nevertheless, pretends, in his title-page, to have demonftrated. In fhort, whatever may have been his intentions, he has most palpably failed in the execution: having pointed nearly the whole of his heavy metaphyfical artillery, not against Dr. Priestley, but against the ancient ftoics, and the modern predeftinarians.

ART. XII. Sacrorum Evangeliorum Verfio Syriaca Philoxeniana, ex Codd. MSS. Ridleianis, in Bibl. Coll. Nov. Oxon. repofitis, nunc primum Edita: Cum Interpretatione et Annotationibus Jofephi White, A. M. Coll. Wadh. Socii, et Ling. Arab. Prof. Laudiani. Tom. Primus. Oxonii è Typ. Clarend. 1778. i. e. The Syriac Philoxenian Verfion of the Four Golpels, with a Latin Translation by Mr. White. 4to. 21. 2s. Boards. Rivington, White, &c.

TH

HE Syriac verfions of the New Teftament have not hitherto attracted that regard, or attention, among the critics in facred literature, which, in our opinion, they deserve. There are many Syriac tranflations, but the old, called Pefbito, or the literal, and the Philoxenian, which we have here before us, are the principal. The Pefhito, which is likewife known under the name of Verfio Syriaca Simplex, contains the whole New Teftament, except the fecond epiltle of St. Peter, the two laft of St. John, the epiftle of Jude, and the Revelation, all which are omitted, probably for no other reafon, but, according to the opinion of fome, because they were either not known in the time when this tranflation was made, or because they were not looked upon as canonical. This old Syriac verfion is of the

Immediately after the Preface, we meet with another title-page, and Tomus Secundus upon it. We cannot account for this, having never before feen an inftance where a Preface, of 31 pages, made the first volume, and the book itself, of 652 pages, the fecond; nor can we reconcile it with Mr. White's words in the Preface, p. 31, Si univerfitati placuerit ut jecundum volumen conficiatur.

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greatest

greatest antiquity, and we hesitate not to fay, that it was made in the first century: nay, ftrange as it might appear to those who judge merely as they are biaffed by education, we think it not impoffible, that, in a future age, a more daring critic may attempt to prove that this Pefhito is the very original in which the facred writers have penned the greateft part, if not the whole, of the New Teftament. Father Harduin, that celebrated fceptic, endeavours, in his Latin commentary on the N. T. to prove that the New Teftament was originally written in Latin, and afterward tranflated into Greek; but we think he might, with far more probability, have contended that the Syriac was the true original; as it feems more likely that the apoftles wrote in their mother language, than in Latin or Greek, which they, as poor people, and of a low extraction, could no more underftand, without a miracle, than did the greatest part of the Jews for whom the gofpel was firft written. Moft of the difciples of Chrift were Galileans, and they spoke, together with Chrift, who was educated at Nazareth in Galilea, the Weft-aramean language, which is the very fame in which the Peshito is written. It may alfo be afked, Whence it proceeds. that fo many Syriafms are found in the New Teftament, particularly in the gofpels, even the Syriac expreffions of our Saviour, fuch as Talitha cumi, Eli, Eli, lama fabachthani, &c. tranfated, with the addition in the Greek ὁ ἐσι μεθερμηνευόμενον ? The old Latin verfions, which were made very early, agree, furprisingly, with the Syriac; and it is by far more probable, that they are made from the Syriac, than that the latter fhould be corrected, as fome would fuppofe, from the Latin. The antiquity of the famous Greek copy at Cambridge (Cod. Cantabr. 1. or Codex Beza) is acknowledged to be very great, and we could venture to pronounce it the oldeft among all the Greek copies that contain part of the New Teftament, which are preserved. This Greek copy correfponds fo much with the old Syriac verfion, that we fhould be inclined to fuppofe it made from the Syriac, rather than interpolated from the Latin verfion. Some critics have even thought themselves fharp-fighted enough to find out, in this copy, paffages, where the Greek interpreter mistakes the meaning of fome Syriac expreffions. We could wish the Cambridge copy were accurately printed, together with the text of the Pefhito, as we doubt not that it would lead to useful critical discoveries.

It is further in favour of the great antiquity, if not originality, of the Syriac verfion, that whoever made it, was well verfed in the geography of the Holy Land; and was, in all probability, a Jew. The Writer has given the names of many places with more exactness than we have them in our common Greek Teftament: even thofe inftances of names of places,