the delicious melodies of Purcell or Cimarosa might be disjointed
stammerings to a hearer, whose partition of time should be a thousand
times subtler than ours. But this obstacle too let us imagine
ourselves to have surmounted, and "at one bound high overleap all
bound." Yet according to this hypothesis the disquisition, to which I
am at present soliciting the reader's attention, may be as truly said
to be written by Saint Paul's church, as by me: for it is the mere
motion of my muscles and nerves; and these again are set in motion
from external causes equally passive, which external causes stand
themselves in interdependent connection with every thing that exists
or has existed. Thus the whole universe co-operates to produce the
minutest stroke of every letter, save only that I myself, and I alone,
have nothing to do with it, but merely the causeless and effectless
beholding of it when it is done. Yet scarcely can it be called a
beholding; for it is neither an act nor an effect; but an impossible
creation of a something nothing out of its very contrary! It is the
mere quick-silver plating behind a looking-glass; and in this alone
consists the poor worthless I! The sum total of my moral and
intellectual intercourse, dissolved into its elements, is reduced to
extension, motion, degrees of velocity, and those diminished copies of
configurative motion, which form what we call notions, and notions of
notions. Of such philosophy well might Butler say--

The metaphysic's but a puppet motion
That goes with screws, the notion of a notion;
The copy of a copy and lame draught
Unnaturally taken from a thought
That counterfeits all pantomimic tricks,
And turns the eyes, like an old crucifix;
That counterchanges whatsoe'er it calls