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    Untitled Article

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    Sir , When last T did myself the honour of addressing you * , I intended to have confined my observations on " Physical and Metaphysical Inquiries" to such extracts from that work as you have inserted in the Monthly Repository . I find however , that in order to do their author and jnyself justice it will be

    impos-STRICTURES ON " PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL INQUIRIES . " LETTER II , To the Editor of ' the Monthly Repository .

    sible to adhere to this plan . The Inquirer begins by attacking Berkeley ' s theory ; I certainly have no intention of entering the lists with him on that point ; I do believe , that the sensations in my , mind , are produced by things really existing without me ; but this my belief , does not arise from any thing that he has proven ; on the contrary , his argument , page 5 , assumes as

    a postulate the existence of matter , winch is £ he very point to be proven ; he requires the existence of matter , in order to account for our sensations and then from these sensations , he

    infers the existence of matter : Bishop Berkeley only requires that we have sensations , and then endeavours to prove that they arc caused by a superior npind . As to his arguments in the 13 th

    page , I can as easily conceive of spirit , causing those sensations which we call material , as I can conceive ot it being capable of receiving impressions from matter ; which last the Inquirer evidently supposes , as he speaks of our mind as different from our body . To proceed however to the object more

    immediately in view ; he endeavours to account , in pages 72 and 73 , for the different properties of which matter is possessed before and after combination , ( and which in my last I referred to the arbitrary will of the Supreme Being , ) by supposing either 1 st " That matter previously possessed these properties , which in innumerable instances , involves what he himself terms an

    absurdity , vide pp . IS and 164 ; or 2 dly " That some kinds of matter are so extremely subtle that tfaey enter into all combina-* Mm Rcpos . Vol . il » p . 361 .

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    i Strictures on c < Physical and Metaphysical Inquiries" 46 *

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    of the fruits of so happy a change that the certainty of personal safety and protection , hy the justice and liberality of government may encourage this respectable exile , to return from his unmerited banishment ; and may he end his days in peace and honour in his na * tire country among Englishmen , at last ashamed of the cruel intolerance of which he was suffered so nearly to become the victim /*

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1807, page 465, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2384/page/13/