exist_ in the same subject. This is the declared
object of Baxter's Work on the Soul, which professes to prove that the
only power belonging to "matter," namely, its _vis inertiae_, or
resistance to any change in its present state, is inconsistent with its
possession of any active power. It is not held sufficient to show that
the properties are generically different, and that the substances in
which these properties inhere may and should be designated by distinct
names, as matter and spirit, soul and body; but it must be further
proved that they are so heterogeneous and inconsistent as to be mutually
exclusive, and incapable of coexisting in the same substance. To a
certain extent, we think this mode of reasoning may be admitted. We do
not conceive that "vis inertiae" is the only property belonging to
matter, or that it is necessarily exclusive of attraction and repulsion,
and the other powers which may belong to its specific varieties; but we
do conceive that the "vis inertiae" of mere matter is utterly
inconsistent with the self-activity, the self-moving power, which
belongs to "mind:" and we are confirmed in this conviction by the
anxiety which our opponents have evinced to explain the phenomena of
mind by purely mechanical laws, and to establish a system, not of
_moral_, but of _material_ necessity, in opposition to the doctrine of
man's spontaneity and freedom. We are further of opinion, that
_extension_ cannot be predicated of "mind," without also being
predicated of "thought;" and that to ascribe it to either would lead to
ridiculous absurdities, such as have been noted, and perhaps
caricatured, by Dr. Thomas Brown. We think, too, that the unity and
continuity of consciousness, with the intimate sense of personal
identity, that belongs to all rational and responsible beings, are
utterly irreconcilable with the continual flux and mutation that are
incident to matter, and that they cannot be accounted for without the
supposition of a distinct substance, existing the same throughout all
the changes that occur in the material receptacle in which it dwells. To
this extent we think that the argument is alike legitimate and valid;
but when it goes beyond this, and attempts either to divest matter of
all active properties, or to demonstrate that, in the very nature of
things, sensation and thought could not possibly be annexed to a
material substance, we think that it advances beyond the real exigencies
of the case, and t