‘Dr. Priestley in his last book thinks that the power of perception, as much as the other powers that are termed mental, is the natural result of an organic structure such as that of the human brain. Consequently, the whole man becomes extinct at death; and we have no hope of surviving the grave but what is derived from the Christian revelation. I would be glad to know your lordship’s opinion, whether, when my brain has lost its original structure, and when some hundred years after, the same materials are again fabricated so curiously as to become an intelligent being—whether, I say, that being will be _me_; or if two or three such beings should be formed out of my brain, whether they will all be _me_, and consequently be all one and the same intelligent being. This seems to me a great mystery; but Dr. Priestley denies all mysteries.... I am not surprised that your lordship has found little entertainment in a late French writer on human nature. From what I learn the French philosophers are become rank Epicureans. I detest all systems that depreciate human nature. If it be a delusion that there is something in the constitution of man that is venerable and worthy of its author, let me live and die in this delusion rather than have my eyes opened to see my species in a disgusting light. Every good man feels his indignation rise against those who disparage his kindred or country; why should it not rise against those who disparage his kind? Were it not that we sometimes see extremes meet, I should think it very strange to see atheists and high-shod divines contending who should most blacken and degenerate human nature. Yet I think the atheist acts the most consistent part of the two; for surely such views of human nature tend more to promote atheism than to promote religion and virtue.’ This allusion to contemporary French philosophers is almost the only one I find in Reid. The chief works of Condillac appeared before the _Inquiry_, but it does not seem that they, or Diderot and the French Encyclopedists, were known to him. That Kant is not referred to, nor even known by name, is less surprising. This ignorance is characteristic of Reid’s home-bred, self-contained philosophy.