they have to refufe human Nature the Power of Self-determination and Free dom of Choice, is far from destroying that Power; on the contrary, it is the Cause of their making ufe of it with lefs Constraint, and with unbounded Liberty.

AFTER all, Mr Pope, in quality of a Poet, had a particular Right over this System. The furprizing and even incre→ dible Miracles that Homer fung, have added no fmall Luftre to his Verses. We love to admire, both the Invention, and Poetic Style raised to that fublime Degree to which Homer carried it. Mr Pope, after him, feems to be made for relating the most incredible Facts, and advancing the most improbable Notions. We acknowledge in this Style a Force more than human, when it dazzles fo ftrongly as to caufe People to adopt that which is the moft remote from Common Senfe. of all the Reveries which the ancient Poets have chosen to embelish their Works with, and of all that we read in the Fairy Tales, I doubt whether any Thing equals the System by the expofing of which Mr Popè would let us fee how far human Reafon is

But

capable

capable of erring. The more clofely we examine it, the better fhall we be con vinced of what I affirm.

You defire the Pleafure which is found in drinking Burgundy: It would fignify nothing if you fhould fwallow even the Product of a whole Year: The Liquor might move the Fibres of your Tongue and Throat; but neither those Fibres, nor all the animal Spirits which may par take of their Motion, can make an Im preffion upon that Subftance which is ca pable of perceiving Senfations, and which is properly, and in a peculiar Senfe, that which you call yourself. It is neceffary that this defir'd Senfation Thould arise in that Substance, which is quite diftinct from the corporeal, and fhould arise there by virtue of a Series, a Succeffion of Causes and Effects not to be expreffed. This Senfation, the Refult of fuch a long Series, muft arife precifely at the Time when the Burgundy enters into your Mouth, and goes down your Throat. But in order that this Senfation fhould not arife as of itfelf, and independently of the Efficacy of this Wine, and that you

fhould

fhould imagine this Wine to be the Cause of it, it is abfolutely neceffary that the Moment in which this Senfation arifes be precisely the fame in which the Order of the Univerfe determined your Machine to fwallow this Wine. For this Purpose it was neceffary: too that at the fame Time another Machine fhould, by an inevitable Concatenation, be determined to pour it out. This is not enough; it was moreover neceffary that another Machine should be determined to draw it from the Cask, and place it on the Side-board, and this Cafk ftill another Machine must have fetch'd from Burgundy: How many Steps are here! The Machine would have undertaken this Journey in vain, if it had not been provided with Money or Exchange-Bills, without knowing, however, what Money or Exchange-bills are.

This Money rightly told, or this Bill read aright, would have found in Burgun dy a Machine which, without perceiving this Money, or understanding this Bill, would find itself in its Turn determined by an eternal, or very near eternal, Concatenation, to deliver the Cafks demand

ed;

ed; and in the fame Moment an Intelligent Substance would fancy that it gave Orders for this Sale and Remittance, to which however it had neither mediately nor immediately contributed, because a mere Thinking Subftance is no more capable of acting upon Body, than it is of receiving any Impreffion from it.

WHAT fhall we fay of other Machines, which are called Coopers, determined to make Veffels of which they have no Idea?. What of Artificers in Wood and Iron, who have form'd Tools for the Conftruction of these Veffels, without knowing what they did? For the Thinking Subftances, which accompanied the Bodies of thefe Artificers, might well imagine that they directed them; but this was mere: Imagination, for they did not direct them. What shall I fay of the other Machines, which cultivated the Vines, gather'd the Grapes, and squeezed the Juice from them? The Refult of all this Mechanism was, that a Thinking Subftance at Lausanne. imagin'd that it had Wine brought from. Burgundy, and that it receiv'd agreeable Impreffions from this Wine.

A

1

A HUMAN Machine fmiles withoug knowing what it is doing, another Ma→ chine afks, what it is thinking of; Is it with a Defign to ridicule me, that you make thefe Grimaces?" You may think what

66

you please of it," replies the firft Ma chine, without undertanding any Thing of the Sense of thefe Expreffions. The Thinking Subftances, which accompany the two Machines, fancy themselves to have heard the Sounds, and comprehended their Significations, though thefe Sounds have never reached them. The two cor poreal Machines are determined, by the Influence of a Concatenation of many Ages, to box and ftrike one another; other Machines, of a like and equally neceffary Concatenation, find themselves lowing difpofed to part them. The fol Day, one of thefe Machines that was parted finds itself determined, to write a Challenge, without knowing any thing of the Senfe of it, altho' the Thinking Subftance, which accompanied it, be de termined to think that it dictates that Challenge; another Machine finds itfelf neceffarily determined to carry it; the