body. Nor is there any contradiction in the idea of an immortal body, any more than of an immortal spirit; nor is any being immortal, but by dependence on the Divine Supporting Power. Nor does the notion of the poffibility of a faculty of thinking fuperadded to matter, at all affect the point in queftion. Though it is certain, that a pretended fyftem of matter with a thinking faculty, muft either be nothing more than matter animated by fpirit, or a fubftance of a quite oppofite nature to all that we call matter, about which we cannot reafon, having no ideas of it. Farther, we have reason to conclude, that the body depends on the mind for life and motion; not the mind on the body. We find, that the mind is not impaired by the lofs of whole limbs of the body; that the mind is often very active, when the body is at reft; that the mind corrects the errors, prefented to it through the fenfes; that even in the decay, diforder, or total fufpenfion, of the fenfes; the mind is affected juft as fhe might be expected to be," when obliged to ufe untoward inftruments, and to have wrong reprefentations, and falfe impreffions, forced upon her, or when deprived of all traces, and quite put out of her element. For, the cafe of perfons intoxicated with liquor, or in a dream, or raving in a fever, or diftracted, all which have a refemblance to one another, may be conceived of in the following manner. The mind, or thinking being, which at prefent receives impreffions only by means of the material organ of the brain, and the fenfes through which intelligence is communicated into the brain; the mind, Ifay, being at prefent confined to act only within the dark cell of the brain, and to receive very lively impreffions from it, which is the confequence of a law of nature, to us inexplicable; may be exactly in the fame manner affected by the impreffions made on the brain by a disease, or other accidental cause, as if they were made by fome real external object. For example, if in a violent fever, or a frenzy, the fame impreffions be, by a preternatural flow of the animal fpirits, made on the retina of the eye, as would be made if the perfon was to be in a field of battle, where two armies were engaged; and if at the fame time it hap

pened

249 pened, that by the fame means the fame impreffions fhould be made on the auditory nerve, as would be made if the perfon were within hearing of the noife of drums, the clangour of trumpets, and the fhouts of men; how fhould the fpiritual being, immured as she is in her dark cell, and unufed to fuch a deception as this, how fhould the know it was a deception, any more, than an Indian, who had never feen a picture, could find at the first view, that the canvas was really flat, though it appeared to exhibit a landfcape of feveral miles in extent? It is therefore conceivable that the mind may be ftrongly and forcibly affected by a material fyftem, without being itself material. And that the mind is not material, appears farther, in that she abstracts herself from the body, when she would apply moft clofely to thought; that the foul is capable of purely abstract ideas, as of rectitude, order, virtue, vice, and the like; to which matter furnishes no archetype, nor has any connection with them; that it is affected by what is confeffedly not matter, as the fenfe of words heard, or read in books, which if it were material it could not be: which fhews our minds to be quite different beings from the body, and naturally independent on it; that we can conceive of matter in a way, which we cannot of fpirit, and contrariwife; matter being ftill to be, without any contradiction, conceived of as divifible and inactive; whereas it is impoffible to apply thofe ideas to fpirit, without a direct abfurdity, which fhews, that the mind is the fame, confcious, indivifible, identical being, though the body is fubject to continual change, addition, and diminution; that the mind continues to improve in the most noble and valuable accomplishments, when the body is going faft to decay; that, even the moment before the diffolution of the body, the vigour of the mind feems often wholly unimpaired; that the interefts of the mind and body are always different, and often oppofite, as in the cafe of being obliged to give up life for truth. Thefe confiderations, attended to duly, fhew, that we have no reason to question the poffibility of the living principle's fubifting after the diffolution of the material vehicle.

As

As to the difficulty arifing from the confideration of the close connection between the body and foul, and the impreffions made by the one upon the other, which has led fome to question whether they are in reality at all diftinct beings, it is to be remembered, that this connection, which is abfolutely neceffary in the present ftate, is wholly owing to the divine difpofal, and not to any likeness, much lefs fameness, of the thinking, intelligent agent with the grofs corporeal vehicle. If it had fo pleased the Author of our being, he could have fixed fuch a natural connection between our minds and the moon, or planets, that their various revolutions and afpects might have affected us, in the fame manner as now the health or diforder of our bodies does. But this would not have made the moon and planets a part of us. No more do the mutual impreflions made reciprocally by the mind and body, prove them to be the fame, or that the human nature is all body, especially confidering that, as already observed, in many cafes we evidently perceive an independency and difference between them.

It cannot be pretended that there is any abfurdity in conceiving of the animating principle as exifting even before conception in the womb, nor of a new union commencing at a certain period, by a fixed law of nature, between it and a corporeal vehicle, which union may be fuppofed to continue, according to certain established laws of nature for a long courfe of years; and may be broke, or diffolved, in the fame regular manner; fo that the fyftem of matter, to which the animating principle was united, may be no more to it than any other system of matter.

It is remarkable, that all living creatures, especially our fpecies, on their first appearance in life, feem at a lofs, as if the mind was not, in the infant ftate, quite engaged and united to its new vehicle, and therefore could not command and wield it properly. Sleep, infirm old age, fevere fickness, and fainting, feem, according to certain established laws of nature, partly to, loofen or relax the union between the living principle, the mind, and the material vehicle; and, as it were, to

fet

fet them at a greater diftance from one another, or make them more indifferent to one another, as if (fo to fpeak) almoft beyond the sphere of one another's attraction. Death is nothing more than the total diffolution of this tie, occafioned in a natural way, by fome alteration in the material frame, not in the mind; whereby that which formed the nexus, or union, whatever that may be, is removed or difengaged. It is probable, that the anxiety and diftrefs, under which the mind commonly feels itself at death, is owing rather to the manner and procefs of the diffolution, than to the diffolution itself. For we obferve, that very aged perfons, and infants, often die without a ftruggle. The union between foul and body, being already weak, is eafily diffolved. And if fleep be, as it feems, a partial diffolution of this union, or a fetting the mind and body at a greater diftance from one another, the reafon why it gives no difturbance is, that it comes on in fuch a manner as not forcibly to tear in pieces, but gently to relax the ligatures, whatever they are, between the material and spiritual natures. That there is an analogy between fleep and death is evident from obferving, that fleep fometimes goes on to death, as in lethargic cafes, and in the effects of strong opiates. And it is remarkable, that the life of a perfon, who has taken too large a dofe of opium, cannot be faved but by forcibly wakeing him; as if the mutual action of the mind and body upon one another was the medium of the union; and that, if their mutual action upon one another comes to be leffened to a certain degree, they become indifferent to one another, and the union between them ceases of courfe, as two companions walking together in the dark may come to lose one another, by dropping their converfation, and keeping a profound filence.

It is probable, that the condition in which the mind, juft difengaged from the body, feels itfelf, is very much like to that of dreaming; all confufion, uncertainty, and incoherence of ideas; and that, in fome measure, like the infant-mind newly entered upon a ftate wholly unknown, it finds itfelf greatly at a lofs, and exerts itjelf with much difficulty and difadvantage; till a little

time and habit qualifies it for a new and untried fcene of action*.

For

If the true account of the human nature be, that the fpiritual, active, thinking principle is united to a fubtile etherial vehicle, whofe refidence is in the brain, and that death is the departure of the foul and spirit from the body; which was the notion of the Platonic Philofophers, and Jewish rabbii, and feems to be countenanced by the apostle Paul; if this be the true account of the human make, there is no difficulty in conceiving the poffibility of the mind's thinking and acting in a ftate of total feparation from the grofs terreftrial body, notwithstanding the feeming difficulty of a fufpenfion of thought in profound fleep, or in a fainting fit. the embodied and feparate ftates are fo very different, there is no reafoning from one to the other on every point. It may be impoffible for the mind, while imprifoned in the body, in a great diforder of the animal frame, to join ideas together, for want of its traces in the brain, and other impliments of reafoning, to which it has all along been accuftomed, and which it cannot do without; and yet, it may be poffible for the fame mind, when freed from its dark prifon, to go to work in a quite different manner, to receive impreffions immediately from the objects themselves, which it received before by the intervention of the fenfes, and to contrive for itself memorial traces, and the other neceffary apparatus for improvement, in a much more perfect man

ner.

It may then be able to penetrate into the internal fubftance, and examine the minute arrangement of the fmalleft corpufcles of all kinds of material fyftems. By applying its ductile and delicate vehicle, which may be confidered as all fenfation, all eye, all ear, and touch, it

The author is not afhamed to confefs, that he now thinks his former opinion concerning the ftate of the dead, as represented in thefe paragraphs, erroneous; though he chooses not to alter the text on that account; think. ing it hardly fair to leffen the value of former editions, by adding to fucceeding ones what is better laid before readers in feparate publications. The author is now inclinable to think Doctor Law's opinion, in his Theory of Religion, more rational, as well as more fcriptural, than the generally received notion of the foul's being in a full state of confcioufnefs and activity between death and refurrection. It is a point of mere speculation, no way materially affecting either faith or manners.

may.