From this diversity it follows, that in treating this
second branch of the subject, there will be more ne-
cessity for entering at large into the subject of the
Deity's probable designs in regard to the soul, es-
pecially those to be inferred from its constitution,
than we found for entering into the evidences of his
existence and attributes, although there will not be
so much labor required for proving that this is a
branch of inductive science.

1. PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, OR EVIDENCE OF THE
DEITY'S DESIGNS DRAWN FROM THE NATURE OF THE
MIND.

The Immateriality of the Soul is the foundation
of all the doctrines, relating to its Future State. If
it consists of material parts, or if it consists of any
modification of matter, or if it is inseparably con-
nected with any combination of material elements,
we have no reason whatever for believing that it can
survive the existence of the physical part of our
frame; on the contrary, its destruction seems to fol-
low as a necessary consequence of the dissolution
of the body. It is true that the body is not destroyed
in the sense of being annihilated; but it is equally
true that the particular conformation, the particular
arrangement of material particles with which the
soul is supposed to have been inseparably connect-
ed, or in which it is supposed to consist, is gone and
destroyed even in the sense of annihilation; for that
arrangement or conformation has no longer an ex-
istence, any more than a marble statue can be said
to have an existence when it is burned into a mass
of quicklime. Now, it is to the particular conforma-
tion and arrangement, and not to the matter itself,
that the soul is considered as belonging by any theo-
ry of materialism, there being none of the theories
of materialists so absurd as to make the total mass
of the particles themselves, independent of their
arrangement, the seat of the soul.
the destruction of that form and organization as
Therefore,
effectually destroys the soul which consists in it,
as the beauty or the intellectual expression of the
statue is gone when the marble is reduced to lime-
dust.

Happily, however, the doctrines of materialism rest upon no solid foundation, either of reason or experience. The vague and indistinct form of the propositions in which they are conveyed, affords one strong argument against their truth. It is not easy to annex a definite meaning to the proposition that mind is inseparably connected with a particular arrangement of the particles of matter; it is more difficult to say what they mean who call it a modification of matter; but to consider it as consisting in a combination or matter, as coming into existence the instant that the particles of matter assume a given arrangement, appears to be a wholly unintelligible collocation of words.

Let us, however, resort to experience, and inquire what results may be derived from that safe guide whom modern philosophers most willingly trust, though despised as too humble a helpmate by most of the ancient sages

We may first of all observe that if a particular combination of matter gives birth to what we call mina, his is an operation altogether peculiar and unexampled. We have no other instance of it; we know of no case in which the combination of certain elements produces something quite different, not only from each of the simple ingredients, but also different from the whole compound. We can, by mixing an acid and an alkali, form a third body, having the qualities of neither, and possessing qualities of its own different from the properties of each; but here the third body consists of the other two in combination. There are not two things-two different existences-the neutral salt composed of the acid

and the alkali, and another thing different from that neutral salt, and engendered for the first time by that salt coming into existence. So when, by chiselling, have the marble new-moulded, and endowed with "the marble softened into life grows warm," we the power of agreeably affecting our senses, our memory, and our fancy; but it is all the while the marble: there is the beautiful and expressive marble form which has been given to that stone. But the instead of the amorphous mass, and we have not, besides the marble, a new existence created by the materialists have to maintain that, by matter being the organized body and something different from it, arranged in a particular way, there is produced both and having not one of its properties-neither dimensions, nor weight, nor color, nor form. They have fortis and potash produced both nitre and something to maintain that the chemist who mixed the aqua quite different from all the three, and which began to exist the instant that the nitre crystalized; and that the sculptor who fashioned the Apollo, not only made the marble into a human figure, but called into being something different from the marble and the statue, and which exists at the same time with both and without one property of either. If, therefore, their theory is true, it must be admitted to rest upon nothing which experience has ever taught us; it supposes operations to be performed and relations to exist of which we see nothing that bears the least resemblance in any thing we know.

every form which it assumes, is contradicted by the But secondly, the doctrine of the materialists, in most plain and certain deductions of experience. The evidence which we have of the existence of the mind is complete in itself, and wholly independent of the qualities or existence of matter. It is not only as strong and conclusive as the evidence which makes us believe in the existence of matter, the demonstration are fewer; the truth to which but more strong and more conclusive; the steps of they conduct the reason is less remote from the axiom, the intuitive or self-evident position whence the demonstration springs. We believe that matter our senses, that is, because it produces a certain exists because it makes a certain impression upon change or a certain effect, and we argue, and argue justly, that this effect must have a cause, though the proof is, by no means, so clear that this cause is something external to ourselves. But we know the existence of mind by our consciousness of, or reflection on what passes within us, and our own existence as sentient and thinking beings implies the existence of the mind which has sense and thought. To know, therefore, that we are, and that we think, implies a knowledge of the soul's existence. But this knowledge is altogether independent of matter, and the subject of it bears no resemblance whatever modes of action. Nay, we only know the existence to matter in any one of its qualities, or habits, or of matter through the operations of the mind; and were we to doubt of the existence of either, it would be far more reasonable to doubt that matter exists rations of mind, supposing it to exist, will account than that mind exists. for all the phenomena which matter is supposed to The existence and the opeexhibit. But the existence and action of matter, vary it how we may, will never account for one of the phenomena of mind. We do not believe more firmly in the existence of the sensible objects around us when we are well and awake, than we do in the reality of those phantoms which the imagination conjures up in the hours of sleep, or the season of derangement. But no effect produced by material agency ever produced a spiritual existence, or engendered the belief of such an existence; indeed, the thing is almost a contradiction in terms. That all around us should only be the creatures of our

fancy, no one can affirm to be impossible. But that this will offer no proof that it has ceased to exist. our mind-that which remembers, compares, ima- Indeed, when we speak of its being annihilated, we gines; in a word, that which thinks-that of the may be said to use a word to which no precise existence of which we are perpetually conscious-meaning can be attached by our imaginations. At that which cannot but exist, if we exist-that which any rate, it is much more difficult to suppose that can make its own operations the subject of its own this annihilation has taken place, and to conceive thoughts; that this should have no existence is both in what way it is effected, than to suppose that the impossible, and, indeed, a contradiction in terms. mind continues in some state of separate existWe have, therefore, evidence of the strictest kind, ence, disencumbered of the body, and to conceive induction of facts the most precise and unerring, to in what manner this separate existence is mainjustify the conclusion that the mind exists, and is tained. different from and independent of matter altoge

Now this proposition not only destroys the doctrine of the materialists, but leads to the strongest inferences in favor of the mind surviving the body with which it is connected through life. All our experience shows us no one instance of annihila-change-in all its parts, at every instant of time, it tion. Matter is perpetually changing-never destroyed; the form and manner of its existence is endlessly and ceasingly varying-its existence never terminates. The body decays, and is said to perish; that is, it is resolved into its elements, and becomes the material of new combinations, animate and inanimate, but not a single particle of it is annihilated; nothing of us or around us ever ceases to exist. If the mind perishes, or ceases to exist at death, it is the only example of annihilation which we know.

stantly dream of walking over hot mould, or ashes, | or a stream of lava, or having your feet burned by coming too near the fire. But the effect of falling asleep in a stream of cold air, as in an open carriage, varies this experiment in a very interesting, and indeed, instructive manner. You will, instantly that the wind begins to blow, dream of being upon some exposed point, and anxious for shelter, but unable to reach it; then you are on the deck of a ship, suffering from the gale; you run behind a sail for shelter, and the wind changes, so that it still blows upon you; you are driven to the cabin, but the ladder is removed, or the door locked. Presently you are on shore, in a house with all the windows open, and endeavor to shut them in vain; or, seeing a smith's forge, you are attracted by the fire, and suddenly a hundred bellows play upon it, and extinguish it in an instant, but fill the whole smithy with their blast, till you are as cold as on the road. If you from time to time awake, the moment you fall asleep again the same course of dreaming succeeds in the greatest variety of changes that can be rung on our thoughts.

But the rapidity of these changes, and of the succession of ideas, cannot be ascertained by this experiment: it is most satisfactorily proved by another. Let any one who is extremely overpowered with drowsiness, as after sitting up all night, and sleeping none the next day, lie down, and begin to dictate: he will find himself falling asleep after uttering a few words, and he will be awakened by the person who writes repeating the last word, to show he has written the whole; not above five or six seconds may elapse, and the sleeper will find it at first quite impossible to believe that he has not been asleep for hours, and will chide the amanuensis for having fallen asleep over his work-so great apparently will be the length of the dream which he has dreamed, extending through half a life-time. This experiment is easily tried: again and again the sleeper will find his endless dream renewed; and he will always be able to tell in how short a time he must have performed it. For suppose eight or ten seconds required to write the four or five words dictated, sleep could hardly begin in less than four or five seconds after the effort of pronouncing the sentence; so that, at the utmost, not more than four or five seconds can have been spent in sleep. But indeed, the greater probability is, that not above a single second can have been so passed; for a writer will easily finish two words in a second; and suppose he has to write four, and half the time is consumed in falling asleep, one second only is the duration of the dream, which yet seems to last for years, so numerous are the images that compose it. Another experiment is still more striking, and affords a more remarkable proof both of the velocity of thought, and of the quickness with which its course is moulded to suit any external impression made on the senses. But this experiment is not so easily tried. A puncture made will immediately produce a long dream, which seems to terminate in some such accident as that the sleeper has been wandering through a wood, and received a severe wound from a spear, or the tooth of a wild animal, which at the same instant awakens him. A gun fired in one instance, during the alarm of invasion, made a military man at once dream the enemy had Janded, so that he ran to his post, and repairing to the scene of action, was present when the first discharge took place, which also the same moment awakened him.*

The ingenious Eastern tale, in the Spectator, of the magician who made the prince plunge his head into a pail of water, is founded on facts like those to which we have been referring.

Now, these facts show the infinite rapidity of thought; for the puncture and the discharge of the gun took place in an instant, and their impression on the senses was as instantaneous; and yet, during that instant, the mind went through a long operation of fancy suggested by the first part of the impression, and terminated, as the sleep itself was, by the continuation-the last portion of the same impression. Mark what was done in an instant-in a mere point of time. The sensation of the pain or noise beginning is conveyed to the mind, and sets it a thinking of many things connected with such sensations. But that sensation is lost or forgotten for a portion of the short instant during which the impression lasts; for the conclusion of the same impression gives rise to a new set of ideas. The walk in the wood, and the hurrying to the post, are suggested by the sensation beginning. Then follow many things unconnected with that sensation, except that they grew out of it; and, lastly, comes the wound and the broadside, suggested by the continuance of the sensation, while, all the time, this continuance has been producing an effect on the mind wholly different from the train of ideas the dream consists of, nay, destructive of that train; namely, the effect of rousing it from the state of sleep, and restoring its dominion over the body. Nay, there may be said to be a third operation of the mind going on at the same time with these two-a looking forward to the denouement of the plot,-for the fancy is all along so contriving as to fit that, by terminating in some event, some result, consistent with the impression made on the senses, and which has given rise to the whole train of ideas.

There seems every reason to conclude from these facts, that we only dream during the instant of transition into and out of sleep. That instant is quite enough to account for the whole of what appears a night's dream. It is quite certain we remember no more than ought, according to these experiments, to fill an instant of time; and there can be no reason why we should only recollec: this one portion if we had dreamt much more. The fact that we never dream so much as when our rest is frequently broken, proves the same proposition almost to demonstration. An uneasy and restless night passed in bed, is always a night studded full with dreams. So, too, a night passed on the road in travelling, by such as sleep well in a carriage, is a night of constant dreams. Every jolt that awakens or half-awakens us, seems to be the cause of a dream. If it be said that we always or generally dream when asleep, but only recollect a portion of our dream, then the question arises, why we recol lect a dream each time we fall asleep, or are awakened, and no more? If we can recall twenty dreams in a night of interrupted sleep, how is it that we can only recall one or two when our sleep is continued? The length of time occupied by the dream we recollect is the only reason that can be given for our forgetting the rest; but this reason fails if, each time we are roused, we remember separate dreams.

Nothing can be conceived better calculated than these facts to demonstrate the extreme agility of the mental powers, their total diversity from any material substances or actions; nothing better adapted to satisfy us that the nature of the mind is consistent with its existence apart from the body.

The changes which the mind undergoes in its activity, its capacity, its mode of operation, are matter of constant observation, indeed of every man's experience. Its essence is the same; its fundamental nature is unalterable; it never loses the distinguishing peculiarities which separate it from matter; never acquires any of the properties of the latter: but it undergoes important changes, both in the progress of time, and by means of exercise

and culture. The development of the bodily powers | the mind perishes with the body, nay, the only arappears to affect it, and so does their decay; but we gument be, as it indubitably is, derived from the rather ought to say that, in ordinary cases, its im- phenomena of death, the fact to which we have provement is contemporaneous with the growth of been referring affords an answer to this. For the the body, and its decline generally is contemporane- argument is, that we know of no instance in which ous with that of the body, after an advanced period of the mind has ever been known to exist after the life. For it is an undoubted fact, and almost univer-death of the body. Now here is exactly the instance sally true, that the mind, before extreme old age, be- desiderated, it being manifest that the same process comes more sound, and is capable of greater things, which takes place on the body more suddenly at during nearly thirty years of diminished bodily pow- death, is taking place more gradually, but as effecters; that, in most cases, it suffers no abatement of ually in the result, during the whole of life, and that strength during ten years more of bodily decline; that death itself does not more completely resolve the in many cases, a few years more of bodily decrepi- body into its elements and form it into new combitude produce no effect upon the mind; and that, in nations than living fifteen or twenty years does desome instances, its faculties remain bright to the last, stroy, by like resolution and combination, the selfsurviving the almost total extinction of the corporeal same body. And yet after those years have elapsed, endowments. It is certain that the strength of the and the former body has been dissipated and formed body, its agility, its patience of fatigue, indeed all into new combinations, the mind remains the same its qualities, decline from thirty at the latest; and as before, exercising the same memory and conyet the mind is improving rapidly from thirty to sciousness, and so preserving the same personal fifty; suffers little or no decline before sixty; and identity as if the body had suffered no change at all. therefore is better when the body is enfeebled, at In short, it is not more correct to say that all of us the age of fifty-eight or fifty-nine, than it was in the who are now living have bodies formed of what acme of the corporeal faculties thirty years before. were once the bodies of those who went before us, It is equally certain, that while the body is rapidly, than to say that some of us who are now living at decaying, between sixty or sixty-three and seventy, the age of fifty have bodies which in part belonged the mind suffers hardly any loss of strength in the to others now living at that and other ages. The generality of men that men continue to seventy- phenomena are precisely the same, and the operafive or seventy-six in the possession of all their men- tions are performed in like manner, though with tal powers, while few can boast then of more than different degrees of expedition. Now all would bethe remains of physical strength; and instances are lieve in the separate existence of the soul if they had not wanting of persons who, between eighty and experience of its existing apart from the body. But ninety, or even older, when the body can hardly be the facts referred to proves that it does exist apart said to live, possess every faculty of the mind un- from one body with which it once was united, and impaired. We are authorized to conclude, from though it is in union with another, yet as it is not these facts, that unless some unusual and violent ac- adherent to the same, it is shown to have an existcident interferes, such as a serious illness or a fatal ence separate from, and independent of that body. contusion, the ordinary course of life presents the So all would believe in the soul surviving the body, mind and the body running courses widely differ- if after the body's death its existence were made ent, and in great part of the time in opposite direc- manifest. But the facts referred to prove that after tions; and this affords strong proof, both that the the body's death, that is, after the chronic dissolumind is independent of the body, and that its de- tion which the body undergoes during life, the mind struction in the period of its entire vigor is contrary continues to exist as before. Here, then, we have to the analogy of nature. that proof so much desiderated-the existence of the soul after the dissolution of the bodily frame with which it was connected. The two cases cannot, in any soundness of reasoning, be distinguished: and this argument, therefore, one of pure induction, derived partly from physical science, through the evidence of our senses, partly from psychological science, by the testimony of our consciousness, appears to prove the possible Immortality of the Soul almost as rigorously as "if one were to rise from the dead."

The strongest of all the arguments both for the separate existence of mind, and for its surviving the body, remains, and it is drawn from the strictest induction of facts. The body is constantly undergoing change in all its parts. Probably no person at the age of twenty has one single particle in any part of his body which he had at ten; and still less does any portion of the body he was born with continue to exist in or with him. All that he before had has now entered into new combinations, forming parts of other men, or of animals, or of vegetables or mineral substances, exactly as the body he now has will afterwards be resolved into new combinations after his death. Yet the mind continues one and the same, "without change or shadow of turning." None of its parts can be resolved; for it is one and single, and it remains unchanged by the changes of the body. The argument would be quite as strong though the change undergone by the body were admitted not to be so complete, and though some small portion of its harder parts were supposed to continue with us through life.

But observe how strong the inferences arising from these facts are, both to prove that the existence of the mind is entirely independent of the existence of the body, and to show the probability of its surviving! If the mind continues the same while all or nearly all the body is changed, it follows that the existence of the mind depends not in the least degree upon the existence of the body; for it has already survived a total change of, or, in the common use of the words, an entire destruction of that body. But again, if the strongest argument to show that

Now we have gone through the first division of this second branch of the subject, and have considered the proofs of the separate and future existence of the soul afforded by the nature of mind. It is quite clear that all of them are derived from a strict induction of facts, and that the doctrines rest upon precisely the same kind of evidence with that upon which the doctrines respecting the constitution and habits of the mind are founded. In truth, the subjects are not to be distinguished as regards the species of demonstration applicable to themthe process by which the investigation of them is to be conducted. That mind has an existence perceivable and demonstrable as well as matter, and that it is wholly different from matter in its qualities, is a truth proved by induction of facts. That mind can exist independent of matter and survive the dissolution of the body, is a truth proved exactly in the same manner, by induction of facts. The phenomena of dreams which lead to important conclusions touching the nature of the mind, lead, and by the self-same kind of reasoning, to important conclusions of a similar description, touching the mind's existence independent of the body. The facts, partly

the consideration that the faculties of the mind ripen and improve almost to the time of the body's extinction, and that the destruction of the soul at the moment of its being fitter than ever for worthy things seems quite inconceivable.

physical, partly psychological, which show the mind | But the inference acquires additional strength from to be unaffected by the decay and by even the total though gradual change of the body during life, likewise show that it can exist after the more sudden change of a similar kind, which we term the dissolution of the body by death. There is no means of separating the two classes of truths, those of Psychology and those of Natural Theology; they are parts of one and the same science; they are ascertained by one and the same process of investigation; they repose upon one and the same kind of evidence; nor can any person, without giving way to a most groundless and unphilosophical prejudice, profess his belief in the former doctrines, and reject the latter. The only difference between the two is that the The-so as to make our happiness chiefly consist in their ological propositions are of much greater importance to human happiness than the Metaphysical. П. MORAL ARGUMENT, OR EVIDENCE OF THE DEITY'S DE

SIGNS DRAWN FROM HIS ATTRIBUTES IN CONNECTION

WITH THE CONDITION OF THE SPECIES.

The probable designs of Divine Providence with respect to the future lot of man are to be gathered in part from the nature of the mind itself, the work of the Deity, and in part from the attributes of the Deity, ascertained by an examination of his whole works. It thus happens that a portion of this head of the argument has been anticipated in treating the other head, the nature of the mind. Whatever qualities of the soul show it to differ from matter, both make it improbable that it should perish with the body, and make it improbable that the Deity should destine it to such a catastrophe; and whatever facts show that it can survive a total change of the body during life, show, likewise, the probability that the same being who endowed it with that capacity will suffer it, in like manner, to continue in being after the more sudden change which the body undergoes at death.

The tender affections so strongly and so universally operating in our nature afford another argument of a like kind. No doubt the purpose to which they are subservient in this life is much more distinctly perceivable; yet still it is inconsistent with the provisions of a benevolent Power to suppose that we should be made susceptible of such vehement feelings, and be suffered to indulge in them, gratification, and that then we should suddenly be made to undergo the bitter pangs of separation, while, by our surviving, those pains are lengthened out without any useful effect resulting from our sufferings. That such separations should be eternal appears irreconcilable with the strength of the af fections wounded, and with the goodness so generally perceived in the order of the universe. The supposition of a re-union hereafter overcomes the difficulty, and reconciles the apparent inconsistency. The unequal distribution of rewards and punishments in this world, that is, the misery in which virtue often exists, and the prosperity not seldom attendant upon vice, can in no way be so well accounted for, consistently with the scheme of a benevolent Providence, as by the supposition of a Future State.

But perhaps there is nothing more strongly indicative of such a design in the Creator than the universal prevalence of religion amongst men. There can hardly be found a tribe so dark and barbarous as to be without some kind of worship, and some belief in a future state of existence. Now all religions are so far of God that he permits them; he The argument built upon the supposed designs of made and preserves the faculties which have inthe Creator, requires to be handled in an humble vented the false ones, as well as those which comand submissive spirit; but, if so undertaken, there prehend and treasure up the true faith. Religious is nothing in it which can be charged with pre-belief, religious observance, the looking forward to sumption, or deemed inconsistent with perfect a future existence, and pointing to a condition in though rational devotion. In truth, all the investigations of Natural Theology are equally liable to such a charge; for to trace the evidences of design in the works of nature, and inquire how far benevolence presides over their formation and maintenance-in other words, to deduce from what we see, the existence of the Deity, and speculate upon His wisdom and goodness in the creation and government of the universe-is just as daring a thing, and exactly of the same kind of audacity, as to culate upon His probable intentions with respect to the future destiny of man.

spe

which the deeds done on earth shall be visited with just recompense, are all facts of universal occurence in the history and intellectual habits of the species. Are they all a mere fiction? Do they indeed signify nothing? Is that a mere groundless fancy, which in all places, in all ages, occupies and has occupied the thoughts, and mingled itself with the actions of all mankind, whether barbarous or refined?*

But if it be said that the belief of such a state is subservient to an important use, the restraining the passions and elevating the feelings, it is obvious to The contemplation of the Deity's goodness, as de- reply that so great a mechanism to produce this ef ducible from the great preponderance of instances fect very imperfectly and precariously, appears litin which benevolent design is exhibited, when ac-tle consistent with the ordinary efficacy and simplicompanied with a consideration of the feelings and wishes of the human mind, gives rise to the first argument which is usually adduced in favor of the Immortality of the Soul. There is nothing more universal or more constant than the strong desire of immortality which possesses the mind, and compared with which its other wishes and solicitudes are but faint and occasional. That a benevolent being should have implanted this propensity without the intention of gratifying it, and to serve no very apparent purpose, unless it be the proving that it is without an object, appears difficult to believe: for certainly the instinctive fear of death would have served all the purposes of self-preservation without any desire of immortality being connected with it, although there can be no doubt that this de-ter the entire dissolution of the body-nay, that the sire, or at least the anxiety about our future destiny, is intimately related to our dread of dissolution.

city of the works of Providence, and that the disposition to shun vice and debasement could have been more easily and more certainly implanted by making them disgusting. True, there would then have been little merit in the restraint; but of what value is the production of such merit, if the mind which attains it and becomes adorned by it has no sooner approached perfection than it ceases to exist at all? The supposition of a Future State at once reconciles all inconsistencies here as before, and enables us to comprehend why virtue is taught by the hopes of another life, as well as why those hopes, and the grounds they rest on, form so large a portion of human contemplation.

That the existence of the soul in a new state af

*Note VIII. and IX,