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Strictures on Physical and Metaphysical Inquiries" 361
Untitled Article
that you so far approve of this as to insert it in the Repository ^ I shall not fail to send you the remainder of my remarks concerning our " demanding to be distinguished C- ^ *^ j ^ Hi ? from the other Nonconformists by the title of rational dissenters . " In the mean time , I remaih , Sir , Manchester , Yours most respectfully , April 27 , 1807- W . J *
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STRICTURES ON " PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL INQUIRIES . " To the Editor oj the Monthly Repository . Sir ,, My curiosity has of late been a good deal excited by a review in your magazine of a book entitled € C Physical and Metaphysical Inquiries /* The author ' s theory of heat seems ^ so far as I ^ can judge , the most natural and satisfactory t ) f
any . His notions however , with regard to the self-existence of matter , are I think , liable to considerable objections . What does he mean by the word matter ? Does he mean an unknown something existing independent of its properties ? The substance of Socrates ? If so , it appears to me that he speaks without ideas , for our ideas of things are evidently produced by the action of their properties on our senses ; either immediately , or through the aid ' of - memory ; consequently a boay without properties can produce no "
ideas . But if by matter he means something which being possessed of properties , would without properties cease to exist ,, ( or which amounts to the same thing , so far as we are concerned at least , would cease to exist as a fit subject for our animadversion ) it will remain to be determined whether there are more of these matters than one . If he supposes that there is but one matter , how does he account for the vast variety of substances found in nature ?
For is it not evident that a body acting upon ' itself , never can produce a body different from itself : thus suppose oxygen a simple substance , no quantity of it however greatj , remaining by itself , for any lergth of time , could ever produce , say , water , or any other substance whatever : if then there was originally but one kind of matter , the vast variety of natural productions remains unaccounted for . We must suppose then , I presume , that there are more original substances than one . Now if these are independent of any
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1807, page 361, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2382/page/21/
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