may be the fame, though your want of teeth obftructs the volubility of your expreffion; and, which is more, that you may have a folid and penetrating understanding when your body is moft defective ; you could not but difcern that the foul has full power to animate the body, though in a languishing and drooping condition: -Nay the more the latter declines, the more the former retires into itself. The foul therefore is not the body, nor any part of it; but its life and fpirit.

Let us now confider whether the foul be in any degree corporeal, which is a question worthy of our enquiry, and demands a particular folution.-A body, then, has dimenfions, and contains nothing in it, but what is proportioned to its bulk. Now the foul takes in heaven and earth, time past and present, and a vast number of places, perfons and things, without the leaft confufion; and the more it is filled, the larger is its capacity; the more it contains, the more its defires are encreased: being then in fome fenfe infinite, it cannot be corporeal; efpecially fince it comprehends fo many and fuch great things at the fame time that it is confined within fuch. narrow limits. Again, as it comprises a thousand regions, though it takes up no space; fo it is in them without the least variation of its place.-Command your foul to take its flight in a moment to Conftantinople, from thence to Rome, and immediately to return to you again: command it to traverfe America, or to range along the coast of Africa; no fooner is the injunction given, but it is obeyed. What body, however, can be in feveral places at once without motion; or move without fo much time as bears fome proportion to the distance of the journey propofed ?—Again, one body does not receive the fubftantial form of another, without the lofs or alteration of its own; nor affume a fecond form, without the destruction of the first; as when a fire is applied to wood, when a feed fprings forth into a bud, &c. But the foul receives and entertains ideas of the forms of all things; and the more it compre

hends,

hends, the more it perfects its own; for the more it receives, the more it understands, and confequently is more improved.

If the foul be corporeal, whence does it proceed? Of what is it compofed. If it be derived from the four elements, how came they to give that life, which they have not themfelves? If from an intermixture of them, the fame abfurdity will still fubfift. Shall we not be forced to acknowledge, therefore, that the fame God, who framed the body in fo excellent a manner, breathed into it a foul to make his work compleat? The foul is active, the body paffive, and perfectly inactive, unless moved by another; whereas the foul moves within itself, though not moved from without; and notwithstanding its union with the body, is incorporeal, and confe quently immaterial; for matter cannot receive two contrary forms; whereas the foul receives fire and water, heat and cold, white and black, not only together, but by comparing one with the other, more clearly understands them. In fhort, the more we abstract ourselves from matter, the more vifibly we difcern that nothing can be more repugnant to the nature of the foul than matter is.

In the next place, let us examine whether the foul be corruptible or not; we have fhewn already, that the foul is not the body, and neither grows, nor decays with it; nay, that it is oftentimes moft vigorous, when that draws nearest to its diffolution. Can we then be fo ftupidly ignorant, as to imagine, that the former will perish with the latter? A man's fenfes fail him, becaufe his eyes and fpirits are subject to decay; whereas a blind man's intellects are generally improved; because his mind is not diverted with a variety of objects; and, when the eyes of the body drop from their fockets, the eyes of the understanding may be entertained with a multitude of beautiful ideas. Moreover, if it be the eye that fees, and the ear that hears, it may be asked, why have we not two distinct perceptions, fince we have two eyes and two ears? The reason is, one and the fame foul performs thefe operations by the mediation of the fenfes.

fenfes. And if, as we have before obferved, when our eyes are hut, or the use of them is loft by fome unhappy accident, we fee a thousand things with the eyes of our mind, which are most quick fighted, when our bodily fight is most dim and imperfect; is it not plain, that the foul is no way circumfcribed by the outward senses? Is it poffible that the former fhould be destroyed, because the latter are loft; fince the most valuable senses are then most vigorous?

Whoever has read Milton with any degree of attention, must be feelingly convinced of these truths; fince for noble defcriptions, beautiful images, bold flights, and fublimity of language, no writings-the holy fcriptures excepted-can stand in competition with his Paradife Loft. How pathetically does he open his third book with lamenting the melancholy decays of his mortal frame! The lines we allude to are fo apt to our present purpose, that we fhall conclude this fection of our discourse by recalling them to your remembrance.

"Hail holy light, ofspring of heav'n first-born,

"Or of th' eternal co-eternal beam

May I exprefs thee, unblam'd? Since God is light,
"And never but in unapproached light
"Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright effence increate.
"Or hear'ft thou rather pure ethereal ftream,
"Whole fountain who fhall tell? before the Sun,
"Before the heav'ns thou wert, and at the voice
"Of God, as with a mantle didst invest
"The rifing world of waters dark and deep,

"Won from the void and formlefs infinite.

"Thee I re-vifit now with bolder wing,

"Through utter and through middle darkness borne "With other notes than to th' orphéan lyre

"I fung of Chaos and eternal Night,

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Taught by the heav'nly mufe to venture down "The dark defcent, and up to re-ascend,

"Though hard and rare: thee I revifit fafe,
"And feel thy fovran vital lamp; but thou
"Revifit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
"To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;

So thick a drop ferene hath quench'd their orbs, "Or dim fuffufion veil'd. Yet not the more

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Ceafe I to wander, where the muses haunt

"Clear fpring, or fhady grove, or funny hill,
"Smit with the love of facred fong; but chief
"Thee, Sion, and the flowry brooks beneath,

"That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,

Nightly I vifit: nor fometimes forget

"Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
"So were I equall'd with them in renown,
"Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
"And Tirefias and Phineus prophets old:
"Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
"Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird

Sings darkling, and in fhadiest covert hid
"Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
"Seasons return, but not to me returns

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Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, "Or fight of vernal bloom, or fummer's rose "Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

"But cloud instead, and ever during dark

"Surrounds me, from the chearful ways of men

13

" Cut

"Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
"Prefented with a univerfal blank

"Of Nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,
"And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
"So much the rather thou, celeftial light,
"Shine inward, and, the mind through all her

powers

"Irradiate, there plant éyes, all mift from thence

.

IN the foregoing Section we proved, that we have a vegetative, fenfitive, and rational foul; that the foul is not the body, nor in the leaft dependant on it:-Why fhould the former then be meafured by the latter, and die with it, when, in fome fenfe, it makes even thofe bodies live, which died fome ages ago? Or, shall we be afraid of its being hurt, when it is fubject to no casualty even whilst united to the body? Though a man lofes an arm, or a leg, or even one half of his body, his foul is notwithstanding undivided, and its virtue diffused over all the organs of his mangled carcafe. Nay, the former remains intire, though the latter gradually decays; though the blood be drained out, its motion weak and feeble, its senses obliterated, and its vigour loft; her earthly tabernacle must be mouldring into duft, before the be discouraged; her walls must be battered down ere fhe thinks of retreating; and she must be deprived of every accommodation before he will quit poffeffion. How often has it been seen, that a man on his deathbed hath difcourfed with more wifdom than at any time before! though in a perfect ftate of health; has fettled the affairs of his family with amazing prudence and precision, and has taken his farewel of the world with the utmoft tranquility of mind, and rel fignation to the divine will; when his body, at the fame time, was VOL. III.

K

grown