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106 that this great man seems, on more than one occasion, to have been so far misled by the example of his predecessor, as to indulge himself in speculating on questions altogether unsusceptible of solution. In the present instance, however, there cannot, I apprehend, be a doubt, that it was the application made by Descartes of the old theory of animal spirits, to explain the mental phenomena, which led Newton into that train of thinking which served as the ground-work of Hartley’s Theory of Vibrations. The physiological theory of Descartes, concerning the connection between soul and body, was adopted, together with some of his sounder opinions, by a contemporary English philosopher, Mr Smith of Cambridge, whom I had occasion to mention in a former note; and that, for some time after the beginning of the eighteenth century, it continued to afford one of the chief subjects of controversy between the two English universities, the Alma of Prior affords incontestible evidence. From the same poem it appears, how much the reveries of Descartes about the seat of the soul, contributed to wean the wits of Cambridge from their former attachment to the still more incomprehensible pneumatology of the schoolmen.

Here Matthew said, Alma in verse, in prose the mind By Aristotle’s pen defin’d, Throughout the body squat or tall, Is, bona fide, all in all. And yet, slap-dash, is all again In every sinew, nerve, and vein; Runs here and there like Hamlet’s Ghost, While everywhere she rules the roast.
 * This system, Richard, we are told,

The men of Oxford firmly hold; The Cambridge wits, you know, deny With ipse dixit to comply. They say (for in good truth they speak With small respect of that old Greek) That, putting all his words together, ’Tis three blue beans in one blue bladder.
 * Alma, they strenuously maintain,

Sits cock-horse on her throne the brain, And from that seat of thought dispenses Her sovereign pleasure to the senses, &c, &c.

The whole poem, from beginning to end, is one continued piece of ridicule upon the various hypotheses of physiologists concerning the nature of the communication between soul and body. The amusing contrast between the solemn absurdity of these disputes, and the light pleasantry of the excursions to which they lead the fancy of the poet, constitutes the principal charm of this performance; by far the most original and characteristical of all Prior’s Works.

It would be useless to dwell longer on the reveries of a philosopher, much better known to the learned of the present age by the boldness of his exploded errors, than by the profound and important truths contained in his works. At the period when he appeared, it may perhaps be questioned, Whether the truths which he taught, or the errors into which

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