But no one could refute this fallacy better than Locke himself
has done in some of the passages already quoted from his other train of
reasoning.
But to continue the quotation:--"If, therefore, it be evident that
something necessarily must exist from eternity, it is also as evident that
that something must necessarily be a cogitative being; for it is as
impossible [_inconceivable_] that incogitative matter should produce a
cogitative being, as that nothing, or the negation of all being, should
produce a positive being or matter." Again,--"For unthinking particles of
matter, however put together, can have [_can be taught to have_] nothing
thereby added to them, but a new relation of position, which it is
impossible [_inconceivable_] should give thought and knowledge to them."
It is unnecessary to multiply these quotations, for, in effect, they would
all be merely repetitions of one another. It is enough to have seen that
this able author undertakes to demonstrate the existence of a God, and that
his whole demonstration resolves itself into the unwarrantable inference,
that as we are unable to conceive how thought can be a property of matter,
therefore a property of matter thought cannot be. That such an erroneous
inference should occur in any writings of so old a date as those of Locke
is not in itself surprising. What is surprising is the fact, that in the
same writings, and in the course of the same discussion, the fallacy of
this very inference is repeatedly pointed out and insisted upon in a great
variety of ways; and it has been chiefly for the sake of showing the
pernicious influence which preformed opinion may exert--viz.
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