less conformable to the first natural apprehensions of the untutored mind, than to the soundest principles of philosophy*. And it will, I apprehend, receive no small confirmation from considering some of the more remarkable operations of the soul itself.

It is evident, that the intellectual part of our frame exercises a superintending and sovereign command over the body. It moves, directs, controls, supports, protects, and governs the whole corporeal system.. Now, in other cases, we see that the movING POWER is something different from the MACHINE it actuates. We are therefore led by analogy to conclude, that the soul is as distinct from the body, as the force of gra vity is from the clock which it sets in motion, or the wind that fills the sails, and the pilot that sits at the helm, from the vessel which the one steers and the other impels.

And indeed the soul itself gives, in vari-: ous instances, very strong indications that this is actually the case. That power which it sometimes exerts, when immersed in profound

Omni in re consensio omnium gentium LEX NATURÆ putanda est. Tusca. Quæst. 1. i,

found thought, of abstracting itself, of being absent as it were from the body, and paying no regard to the impressions made upon it by external objects; that authority by which it corrects and overrules the reports made to it by the senses, for which it frequently substitutes the conclusions of its own judgment; that facility with which, by turning the mental eye inward, and contemplating itself and all its wonderful operations, in the management of its internal stores, it forms a new set of ideas peculiarly its own, purely intellectual and spiritual*; that vigour which it sometimes manifests in the most excruciating disorders, and even at the approach of death, when its earthly tenement is all shattered and decayed; the essential difference there is between the pains and pleasures of the body and of the mind; the emotions often raised in us, without any external impression, by the eminent virtues of great and good men, in distant ages and countries; the astonishing activity and vivacity, the fertility of invention, and rapidity of transition, which the soul frequently displays

plays in dreams, when the body, and all its senses and powers, are benumbed and locked up in sleep; the variety of unexpected scenes which it then, by a kind of enchantment, raises up to view; the strange and unheard-of persons, places, incidents, and conversations, it sometimes creates, totally unconnected with any occurrences of the preceding day, and of which not the smallest traces are to be found in the memory; and above all, that astonishing, yet well-attested phenomenon of SLEEP-WALKING, where, though the eyes are insensible to all external impressions, and sometimes entirely closed, yet the SOMNAMBULIST directs himself with unerring certainty through the most intricate windings, and over the most dangerous precipices, and without any apparent assistance from the organs of sense, has been known to read, write, and compose*; all these circumstances taken together must be allowed to form a very strong accumulatiou of evidence, that our thinking part is something more than mere organical mechanism, something,

See a most extraordinary and well-authenticated instance of this in the Encyclopedie, article Somanmbule.

́thing, in short, distinct and capable of acting separately from our corporeal frame*.

It is true, indeed, there are many cases in which the mind appears to be considerably affected by the state and circumstances of the body. But all these appearances will admit as easy a solution from the hypothesis of two distinct essences, closely united, and powerfully sympathizing with each other, as from the supposition of our being one single, simple, uncompounded, homogeneous sub

stance.

If then the preceding remarks have rendered it highly probable that we are endued with a principle of perception distinct from the body; the main point respecting the capacity of the soul to survive the grave is established; and, although it may be extremely useful and satisfactory to the mind, yet it is

not

* Even one of the many circumstances here collected together, viz. the vigour and vivacity which the mind frequently displays, when the body is almost worn out with pain, sickness, and old age, had force enough to convince a celebrated wit, infidel, and libertine of the last century, (but who afterwards became a sincere convert to Christianity) that the soul was a substance totally distinct from the body. See Bp. Burnet's Account of Lord Rochester, 5th ed. pp. 20, 21,

1

not absolutely essential to the argument, to prove that the soul is formed of a different kind of substance from the body, or in other words, that it is immaterial. For even granting for a moment (what I trust will very soon appear to be inadmissible) that it is nothing more than a system of organized matter; yet, since it is, by the supposition, distinct from the body, it does by no means follow, that when the body dies, the sentient system will also be dissolved and perish. The same Almighty Being that could superadd to dead matter, so extraordinary and so unlikely a power as that of thought, could also, if he pleased, with precisely the same ease, superadd to it the still further power of surviving the grave. A material soul therefore, may still, for any thing we know to the contrary, be an immortal one. But at the same time, it must be confessed, an incorporeal essence bids so much fairer for immortality, and is withal an opinion which has so much better grounds to support it, that I shall entreat your patience, while I just touch as concisely as possible on a few of the principal arguments which are usually adduced in favour of this doctrine,

It