Nor is this a new phase of the theory, or an original discovery of the present age; it was familiarly known and fully discussed[172] in the days of Clarke and Collins, and every similitude which is now employed to illustrate it may be found dissected in their writings.

Collins had undertaken to prove that "an individual power may reside in a material system which consists of separate and distinct parts,"-- "an individual power which is _not_ in every one, nor in any one, of the particles that compose it, when taken apart and considered singly:" and he had adduced as an example the very similitude which Atkinson employs, namely, "fragrance from the flower;" for he adds, "a rose, for example, consists of several particles, which, separately and singly, want a power to produce that agreeable sensation we experience in them when united." Other instances are given; such as "the power of the eye to contribute to the act of seeing, the power of a clock to show the hour of the day, the power of a musical instrument to produce in us harmonious sounds;" these, he says, "are powers not at all resulting from any powers of _the same kind_ inhering in the parts of the system;" and he infers that "in the same manner the power of thinking, without being an aggregate of powers of the same kind, may yet inhere in a system of matter." But these examples, so far from confirming, serve rather to confute, the theory in whose support they are adduced.

Could it be shown, indeed, that the eye possesses _in itself_ the power of vision, and that sight results solely from its peculiar texture; or, that a clock is really an "intellectual machine," and produces an "intellectual effect;" or, that a musical instrument possesses in itself the soul of melody, and is conscious of its own sweet sounds,--then it might be possible to entertain the supposition that, _in like manner_, an organized brain may have the power of producing thought, and feeling, and will.

But what is the matter of fact?
Let Dr.Clarke's answer with reference to the case of a timepiece suffice for all: "That which you call the power of a clock to show the time of the day is evidently _nothing in the clock itself_, but the figure and motion of its parts, and, consequently, not anything of a different sort or kind from the powers inherent in the parts.

Whereas 'thinking,' if it was the result of the powers of the different parts of the machine of the body, or of the brain in particular, would be something really inhering in the machine itself, specifically different from all and every one of the powers of the several parts out of which it resulted; which is an express contradiction, a supposing the effect to have more in it than the cause." ...