Those who imagine the eye-balls look and see, and that externals and the perceptions they promote are the same, should, upon reflection, attribute sight to their spectacles; for, as sight is nothing bettered when the glasses are removed, so should the temporary improvement be referred to the spectacles having sight as well as the eyes. In consequence of all mankind being similarly organised, that which seems coloured, sonorous, hot, acid, or aromatic to one person, is so to every one else with sane eyes and senses; by which unanimity of opinion, in these respects, prevails throughout the great family of man, in the worldly concerns of active life, and the social compact is maintained indissoluble. The all-wise, benevolent dispensation of the senses, by which man's existence is supplied with enjoyments not in all nature otherwise to bestow; and his intellectual faculties provided with means of contemplating the attributes of his Maker through his knowledge, such as it is, of the creation, which makes known to us not only God's regard for his creatures, but his supreme omniscience in the economy made manifest throughout all his works. Were bodies coloured as we imagine, there should be an element of each red, yellow, and blue atoms; elements of sound, heat, and cold; elements of flavour and odour innumerable: whereas, by the substitution of sensations, matter without any such qualities, or any whatever, excepting that of being everlasting, is made subservient to the formation of a universe of worlds, teeming with beauty, harmony, and wonders; all contributing to the comfort, enjoyment, happiness, edification, and future hope of its sojourning inhabitants. Now, when from the established philosophy we deduct gravitation, attraction and repulsion, which are as foreign to inert matter as vitality to the dead,--the host of chymicals, so repugnant to the principle of _inertia_,--the imaginary living principles, erroneously imputed to the mechanical organs of the animal system,--the sensations of luminousness, light, colour, sound, heat, cold, acidity, and of flavours and odours,--when the entire of these unphysical, mere nominals, are deducted from modern philosophy, there remains nothing whatever to produce action, physical change, or motion, excepting _pressure_, which has been always looked upon as a mere adjunct to the imagined numerous powers of nature. When common sense has rejected the whole, then will the philosophy of the Fathers be valued by the world, as would be a garment with more holes than threads. MATTER As a general term, _matter_, means substance; with scientific precision, the term is confined to the elementary state, in contradistinction to the term _body_, applied to matter consolidated into solids and fluids.