Note 326 — MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS.

“Is not God the first cause of matter as well as of mind? Do not the first attributes of matter lie as inscrutable in the bosom of God—of its first author—as those of mind? Has not even matter confessedly received from God the power of experiencing, in consequence of impressions from the earlier modifications of matter, certain consciousnesses called sensations of the same? Is not, therefore, the wonder of matter also receiving the consciousnesses of other matter called ideas of the mind a wonder more flowing out of and in analogy with all former wonders, than would be, on the contrary, the wonder of this faculty of the mind not flowing out of any faculties of matter? Is it not a wonder which, so far from destroying our hopes of immortality, can establish that doctrine on a train of inferences and inductions more firmly established and more connected with each other than the former belief can be, as soon as we have proved that matter is not perishable, but is only liable to successive combinations and decombinations.