who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce
the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and
investigations of science concur to prove the unconsciousness of
matter.

"It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent in matter, or
that every particle is a thinking being. Yet if any part of matter
be devoid of thought, what part can we suppose to think? Matter
can differ from matter only in form, density, bulk, motion, and
direction of motion. To which of these, however varied or
combined, can consciousness be annexed? To be round or square, to
be solid or fluid, to be great or little, to be moved slowly or
swiftly, one way or another, are modes of material existence all
equally alien from the nature of cogitation. If matter be once
without thought, it can only be made to think by some new
modification; but all the modifications which it can admit are
equally unconnected with cogitative powers."

"But the materialists," said the astronomer, "urge that matter may
have qualities with which we are unacquainted."

"He who will determine," returned Imlac, "against that which he
knows because there may be something which he knows not; he that
can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged certainty, is
not to be admitted among reasonable beings. All that we know of
matter is, that matter is inert, senseless, and lifeless; and if
this conviction cannot he opposed but by referring us to something
that we know not, we have all the evidence that human intellect can
admit. If that which is known may be overruled by that which is
unknown, no being, not omniscient, can arrive at certainty."