But the grand aim of Baxter, in depriving matter of its powers, is to establish the immateriality, and consequent immortality, of the soul.It is a fundamental position with him, that "a power always belongs to something living." He is thus able to establish the existence of a human soul active and immortal.He maintains that " no substance or being can have a natural tendency to annihilation or become nothing," and argues that the soul must endlessly abide an active perceptive substance, without either fear or hopes of dying, through all eternity." When we find such positions coolly assumed, one almost feels justified in rejoicing that in that very age David Hume rose up to dispute all such dogmas; and that in the following age Emmanuel Kant examined narrowly the foundations both of rational theology and of rational psychology.We are certainly warranted in feeling a high gratification that Thomas Reid, a wiser man than any of these, did immediately after the time of Hume, and before the time of Kant, set about establishing natural religion and philosophy upon a safer foundation.
Baxter is prepared to follow out his principles to all their consequences, however preposterous they might appear.
The phenomena of dreaming came in his way, and he gives an explanation of them.He cannot refer these dreams to dead matter, nor can it be the soul that forms the scenes present to it.His theory is, that separate immaterial beings act upon the matter of our bodies, and produce on the sensory a or vision, which is perceived by the active and recipient mind.He acknowledges that he knows nothing of the conditions and circumstances of these separate agencies, but he evidently clings to the idea that there is no scarcity of living immaterial beings, and asks triumphantly: "Why so much dead matter, without living immaterial substance in proportion? " " Hath not the most despicable reptile animalcule an immaterial soul joined to it?"It ought to be added, that in his " Evidence " be adduces stronger arguments, than those derived from his favorite view of matter, in favor of the soul's immortality.
He shows that if there be no state beyond the grave, our existence is incomplete, without design, irrelative; and he calls in the divine perfections as furnishing 'a certain ground of confidence that our existence will not be finally broken off in the midst of divine purposes thus visibly unfinished here," and securing that beings "becoming good for {47} something should not instantly become nothing." In arguing thus, be shows his besetting tendency to take up extreme positions; for lie maintains that in our world pain is much more extensive in its nature than pleasure, and that all bodily pleasures are merely instigations of pains.He argues that as in this world reason may often be disobeyed with no evil consequences and obeyed without any good ones, so there must be a future world to make every thing consistent with reason.He shows that the prepossessions of mankind are in favor of this tenet." In the very dawnings of reason, let a child be told what is death, having no idea of any way of existing beside the present, amazement seizes him: lie is perplexed, uneasy, dismayed." He is met, as so many others have been, by the objection, that most of these arguments would prove that brutes are immortal.In answering it, he is obliged to allow that immortality does not depend solely on immateriality, and to throw himself on the moral argument, which does not apply to brutes, which, not being moral agents, are not capable of rewards and punishments.
But it is clear that he cherishes the idea that the immaterial part of brutes, while not constituting the same conscious being, may not perish ultimately when separated from the material frame.
In treating of these favorite topics, he discusses a great many important philosophic questions, and always gives a clear and decided opinion.He evidently favors the arguments derived from "abstract reason and the nature of things" in behalf of the divine existence.He argues the necessity of an infinitely perfect intelligent being, -- not only from space and time, as Clarke did, but from the necessity of eternal truth in geometry or in other abstract sciences." Truth is not a being existing by itself, and therefore the immutable necessary nature of truth must be referred to some being existing of itself, and existing immutably and eternally." We have only to define truth as the conformity of our ideas to things, to see the fallacy lurking in this argument.