word _spirit_, in its present received usage, conveys no one sense that
is tangible, either to ourselves or to those that invented it;
consequently cannot be of the least use, either in physics or morals.
What modern metaphysicians believe and understand by the word, is
nothing more than an _occult_ power, imagined to explain _occult_
qualities and actions, but which, in fact, explains nothing. Savage
nations admit of spirits, to account to themselves for those effects,
which to them appear marvellous, as long as their ignorance knows not
the cause to which they ought to be attributed. In attributing to
spirits the phenomena of Nature, as well as those of the human body, do
we, in fact, do any thing more than reason like savages? Man has filled
Nature with spirits, because he has almost always been ignorant of the
true causes of those effects by which he was astonished. Not being
acquainted with the powers of Nature, he has supposed her to be animated
by a _great spirit_: not understanding the energy of the human frame, he
has in like manner conjectured it to be animated by a _minor spirit_:
from this it would appear, that whenever he wished to indicate the
unknown cause of a phenomena, he knew not how to explain in a natural
manner, he had recourse to the word _spirit_. In short, _spirit_ was a
term by which he solved all his doubts, and cleared up his ignorance to
himself. It was according to these principles that when the AMERICANS
first beheld the terrible effects of gunpowder, they ascribed the cause
to wrathful spirits, to their enraged divinities: it was by adopting
these principles, that our ancestors believed in a plurality of gods, in
ghosts, in genii, &c. Pursuing the same track, we ought to attribute to
spirits gravitation, electricity, magnetism, &c. &c. It is somewhat
singular, that priests have in all ages so strenuously upheld those
systems which time has exploded; that they have appeared to be either
the most crafty or the most ignorant of men. Where are now the priests
of Apollo, of Juno, of the Sun, and a thousand others? Yet these are the