air, expresses not one fact, but as many separate facts as there are separate particles dissolved or burnt;-that the unity, in short, is not in the chemical phenomena as facts, but in the mind and only in the mind, which considers all these facts together; and that the mere words combustion and solution, either signify nothing, or signify states of innumerable particles, which are not the less innumerable, because they are comprehended in a single word. Sensation then, which is not more truly felt by us in any case, as a pleasure or a pain, than it is felt to be one and incapable of division, is not a state of many particles, which would be as many separate selves, without any connecting principle that could give them unity, but a single substance, which we term mind, when we speak of it generally, or self, when we speak of it with reference to its own peculiar series of feeling. There is mind then, as well as matter, or rather, if there be a difference of the degrees of evidence, there is mind, more surely than there is matter ;-and if at death, not a single atom of the body perishes, but that which we term dissolution, decay, putrefaction, is only a change of the relative positions of those atoms, which in themselves continue to exist with all the qualities which they before possessed, there is surely no reason, from this mere change of place of the atoms that formed the body, to infer, with respect to the independent mind, any other change, than that of its mere relation to those separated atoms. The continued subsistence of every thing corporeal, cannot, at least, be regarded, as indicative of the annihilation of the other substance; but must, on the contrary, as far as the mere analogy of the body is of any weight, be regarded as a presumption in favour of the continued subsistence of the mind, when there is nothing around it, which has perished, and nothing even which has perished, in the whole material universe, since the universe itself was called into being. The Deity, however, though he has not chosen to annihilate a single atom of matter, since he created the world, may, it will be admitted, have chosen to annihilate every spiritual substance. But with the strong analogy of matter, which is the only substance that is capable of being perceived by us, in favour of the continued existence of the mind, it would be necessary, for the proof of the supposed spiritual mortality, to show some reason which may be believed to have influenced the Supreme Being, to this exclusive annihilation. The assertor of the soul's immortality,-if the existence of the soul, as a separate substance, be previously demonstrated,— has not so much to assign reasons for the belief of its immor tality, as to obviate objections which may be urged against that belief. At the moment of death, there exists the spirit; there exist also the corporeal atoms,--at that moment, the Deity allows every atom to subsist as before. The spirit, too, if he do not annihilate it, will subsist as before. If we suppose him to annihilate it, we must suppose him to have some reason for annihilating it. Is any such reason imaginable, either in the nature of the spirit itself, or in the character of the Diety? Instead of any such reason for annihilation, that might be supposed to justify the assertion of it, we found, on the contrary, reasons, which might of themselves lead us to expect the continued existence, far more probably than the destruction of the soul. If the Deity will, as it is evident from the whole frame of our minds, that he most truly wills, the progress of mankind, he must will the progress of the individuals of mankind ;-since mankind is but a name for the individuals who compose it ;-and, if he will the progress of individuals, there can be no reason, that he should love that progress less, when the individual is capable of making greater advances,that, merely on account of that greater capacity, he should destroy, what he sustained with so much care for that partial progress which he now delights to suspend. In the state of the spirit, then, at the moment of death, there is nothing which seems to mark it out for exclusive annihilation. Are we to find a reason for this then, in the character of the Deity himself? On the contrary, would not his annihilation of the soul, when every motive for continuing its existence,—as far as we may presume to think of the motives of the Deity, in accordance with the general design exhibited by him, in the more obvious appearances of the universe,—seems rather stronger than weaker, imply a sort of capricious inconsistency, in the Divine character, which the beautiful regularity of his government of the world leaves us no room to infer? Nay more, may we not almost venture to say, that a future state of retribution is revealed to us, in those divine perfections which the universe so manifestly exhibits, and in those moral feelings which are ever present to our heart? Every seeming irregularity in the sufferings of the good, and in the unequal distribution of happiness, admits, in this way, of being reconciled with those high moral perfections which the voice of conscience within us, by its uniform approbation of virtue, and disapprobation of vice, proclaims to belong to him who has made it a part of our very nature, thus to condemn and approve. The temporary inequalities are, in the mean time, evidently of moral advantage. But still, these supposed irregu larities of suffering and enjoyment,-though in the highest degree useful, as we found, for the production and fostering of virtue, and of all the delights of conscience which may attend the virtuous through immortality, and therefore justly a part of the benevolent dispensations of God on earth,-are reconcileable with his moral perfections, only by the immortality of the spirit, which, after suffering what virtue can suffer for a few years of life, may rejoice forever in the presence of that God, in devout submission to whose will, what the world counted suffering, was scarcely what required an act of fortitude to endure it. In whatever light then, at the moment of death, we consider either the soul itself or its Creator, we discover reasons rather of continuing its existence than of annihilating it. The evidence of this sort may be strong, or it may be weak, but weak or strong, it is, at least, favourable to the affirmative side of the question. We have not merely then, the powerful presumption for the continued existence of the spirit, which arises from the continuance, even in what we term decay, of every thing corporeal; but we have, to strengthen this presumption still more, every argument which can be drawn from our knowledge of the divine character, to which alone we are to look for the evidence of his intention to annihilate or preserve, as we have seen, from the inadequacy of mere matter to account for the phenomena of thought. If there be a spiritual substance existing at the moment of death, which would continue to subsist but for the divine will,-which alone can annihilate, as it alone can create,-we find not merely that it is impossible to assign any positive reason, which may be supposed to influence the Deity to annihilate what he had formed, but that there are positive reasons which might lead us to expect his continued preservation of it. We have, in short, for the immortality of the soul, from the mere light of nature, I will not say evidence, that is demonstrative and irresistible,-for that was left to be revealed to us by a more cloudless light,-but as least as strong a combination of presumptive evidence, negative and positive, as we can imagine such a subject in the obscurity of human reason to possess. The objections sometimes urged against the immortality of the thinking principle, from the influence of disease, or of age, which is in deed itself a species of disease, but an incurable one, on the mental faculties, are of no force when urged against the system of those who admit the existence both of matter and mind, and the connection which the Deity has in so many relations established, of our bodily and mental part. Our sensations are as much states of the mind, as any other of our Vor. III.-3 M mental affections. That the slightest puncture of our cuticle by the point of a pin, or the application of a few acrid particles to our nostrils, should alter completely, for the time, the state of the thinking principle, might as well be urged in disproof of the immortality of the soul, as the same sort of connection of mind and body, which the imbecility of disease exhibits. If the nervous system were to continue long, in precisely the same state as that which is produced by the puncture of a pin, it is evident that the mind would be as little capable of reflection as in dotage or madness; and in dotage or madness, the nervous system is not disordered for a few moments, but continues to exist in a certain state for a length of time, with which, of course, during that length of time, the state of the mind continues to correspond. If the momentary nervous affection, arising from the puncture then, be no proof of the soul's mortality, and prove only its susceptibility of being affected by the body to which its Creator has united it, I do not see how the more lasting influence of the more lasting nervous affection can be a proof of any thing more. "Suppose a person," says Cicero, "to have been educated from infancy in a chamber, in which he could see objects only through a small chink in the window-shutter, would he not be apt to consider this chink as essential to his vision, -and would it not be difficult to persuade him that his prospect would be enlarged by the demolition of the walls of his temporary prison?" In such a case as that which Cicero has supposed,--if the analogy may be extended to the present objection, it is evident, at least, that, if the aperture were closed for years, or if the light transmitted through it, for the same length of time, were merely altered in tint, by the interposition of some coloured transparent body, these changes would as little imply any blindness or defect of vision, as if the darkening or tinging of the light in its passage through the aperture, had occurred only for a few moments. The longest continued disorder of the nervous system then, I repeat, whatever corresponding mental affections it may induce, proves nothing more with respect either to the mortality or the immortality of the sentient and thinking principle, than the shorter affection of the nerves and brain, which is followed in any of our momentary sensations, by its corresponding mental change. If the mind were, during our earthly existence, absolutely independent of the body, during its union with it, it would, indeed, be wonderful that any bodily disease should be found to affect it; but if it have susceptibilities of affection that are, in many respects, accommodated to certain states of the bodily organs, the real wonder would be, if a disordered state of the bodily organs were not followed by any corresponding change in the state or affections of the mind. The result of this long disquisition will, I hope, be a deeper conviction in your minds of the force of the evidence, which even human reason affords, of the great truth for which I have contended. "Quicquid est illud, quod sentit, quod sapit, quod vult, quod viget, cœleste et divinum est," says Cicero, "ob It is of celestial origin, eamque rem æternum sit necesse est." he says, because, in its remembrance of the past, and foresight of the future, and wide comprehension of the present, there are characters of the divinity, which nothing that is of the gross mixture of earth can partake. "Hinc sese," says the author of one of the noblest modern Latin poems on this noble subject, De Immortalitate Animi, Hinc sese in vita supra sortemque situmque After these observations, on the doctrines of Natural Theology, with respect to the being and perfections of God,--the services of duty which it is not so much the obligation, as it is the privilege and highest glory of our nature to pay, in the devotion of our heart, to a Being so transcendent,--and the prospect of that immortal existence, in which, after the scene of earthly things is closed upon our view, we are still to continue under the guardianship of the same provident Goodness, which sustained us during the years that are termed by us our life, as if exclusively constituting it, though they are only the infancy as it were, or the first few moments of a life that is everlasting--I return now to the only subdivision of our moral conduct, which remained to be considered by us,--that which relates immediately to our own welfare,--the duty, as it has been termed, which we owe to ourselves. The phrase is not a very happy one; but it is sufficiently expressive of that direct relation to self, which is all that is meant to be understood in the conduct, to which the phrase is applied. The consideration of this, you will remember, I postponed, till we |