Duncan of South Warnborough published from his manuscripts, after correcting the style, " The Evidence of Reason in proof of the Immortality of the Soul," and at the close is his letter to Wilkes.Another work of his, entitled "Histor," discussing, on the English side, the controversy between the British and Continental writers as to force, and on the side of Clarke, the controversy between Clarke and Leibnitz, was offered to Millar the bookseller; but the new generation did not appreciate his life-labors; his day was over, and the offer was declined.
The avowed design of Baxter, in all his works, is to establish the existence of an immaterial power.Such a defence seemed to him to be required, in consequence of the new views of the powers of matter founded on the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton; by the equivocal language of Locke, frequently quoted about our not being "able to know whether any material being thinks or not;" and by the materialistic spirit abroad.The new doctrine of all matter attracting other matter seemed to show that we must be prepared to modify the old doctrine, that body is altogether passive.
Leibnitz, on metaphysical grounds, and in opposition to the accepted Cartesian {45} doctrine, had maintained that matter has an essential potency.Baxter proceeds on the doctrine of Clarke, the friend of Newton, and quotes his language."All things that are done in the world are done either immediately by God himself, or by created intelligent beings; matter being evidently not at all capable of any laws or powers whatsoever, any more than it is capable of intelligence, excepting only this one negative power, that every part of it will always and necessarily continue in that state, whether of rest or motion, wherein it at present is.So that all those things which we commonly say are the effects of the natural powers of matter and laws of motion, of gravitation, attraction, or the like, are indeed (if one will speak strictly and properly) the effects of God's acting continually and every moment, either immediately by himself, or mediately by some created intelligent being,"The first volume of Baxter's work on the "Nature of the Soul," his "Appendix" and a large part of his "Evidence,"are mainly occupied with a full elucidation and elaborate defence of the views summarily expressed in this passage.
He labors to prove that a <vis inertiae>, or resistance to a change of present state of rest or motion, is essential to matter; that matter hath this and nothing else; that it cannot have any sort of active power; that what are called the powers of matter is force impressed upon it <ab extra>.
He maintains that matter is "liable to but one change or casualty, /viz., to be annihilated, or to be destroyed by a Being to whose power that effect is competent," and lie denies that Infinite Power may " superadd a property to a substance incapable of receiving it." He maintains this doctrine as resolutely as if it were the foundation of religion, which must stand or fall with it.The questions which he has taken up had been discussed in a profound manner by Descartes and Leibnitz, and they cannot be regarded as settled at this day.But from his dogma of the impotency of matter he argues the necessity of an immaterial powerful being who first made the dead substance, matter, who originally impressed, and still continues to impress, motion upon it." I am of opinion, and think it would be easy to show it, if one bad leisure to run through the several particulars, that unless an immaterial power continually re-excited motion in the material universe, all would stop in it in a very short time, perhaps in half an hour, except that the planets would run out in straight-lined directions" ! ! "To say that Deity interposes when he sees that matter would go wrong, is the same thing, in other words, as owning that lie interposes always if that were proper.Every particle of matter resists a change of its present state, and therefore could not effect a change of state in itself nor in other particles." He would thus establish his conclusion, that the " Deity, who can be excluded from no place, but is active and present everywhere, acts immediately on all the parts of matter,"and that his governing is only his creating power constantly repeated."Our philosophy can only be consistent when we take in the immediate power of the Creator as the efficient cause in all the works of nature." He looks on his own position as being very much superior, in its religious aspects, to the doctrines which had been entertained by many others." Low and pitiful are the shifts we are put to when we would remove the Deity to the head of nature, and the head of nature out of sight." {46}
"It is not right to exalt the Deity in words and derogate from his perfections in facts.This is only paying him a compliment, and then setting aside his government in whole or in part, -- a state artifice.Cicero objects this low cunning to Epicurus, when he says, it is " verbis ponere re tollere." " Descartes, before Spinoza, had given the government of the universe to matter and motion; and Leibnitz, under a pretence of extolling the original contrivance of things, leaves the execution of all this to dead substance.According to all these schemes, we see nothing that the Deity does now: we behold only the operations of matter.This fills the mind with anxious doubts.If matter performs all that is wonderful, it catches our first admiration; and we know not where to search for the being who contrived that which we see matter executes with such dexterity." Much may be said in favor of the doctrine, that God acts in all physical action; but it is wiser not to found it on the peculiar dogma of Baxter, that matter is inactive.
