We are now to confider whether, in the reason of the thing, there be any grounds for supposing that death is the deftruction of a living agent : for if there be no well-grounded apprehenfion at all, either in the reafon of the thing, or in the analogy of nature, that this will be the cafe, we have a fair prefumption that our living powers will remain after the diffolution of the body; a prefumption built on that kind of analogy expressed in the word continuance, which feems our only natural reafon for believing that the course of this world will be to-morrow, as it has been so far back as our experience or knowledge of history can carry us. This is an affurance of great importance, and fuch as, in the affairs of common life, is fully fufficient to ground all our proceedings upon. To obtain this affurance in regard to a future life, all that is really neceffary is to prove that there is no diftinct ground for any apprehenfion that death will deftroy a living agent, whatever confused fufpicion, prior to the natural and moral proofs to the contrary, might arise from the terrors of imagination, that the fenfible fhock of that event moft involve our complete deftruction; for if there be no ground for thinking that E 5 death

death will destroy our living powers, why not conclude, as we do in respect to the course of nature, that, as we know they exift up to that event, they will exift after it? If there be any diftinct ground for fuch an apprehenfion, it must arise either from the reason of the thing, or from the analogy of nature.

Now, as for the analogy of nature, it cannot afford the flightest presumption that other animals ever lose their living powers, much less that they lofe them by death: for we have no faculties to trace any beyond, or through it, so as to fee what becomes of them after it. Death withdraws from our view, the fenfible proof we had before of their living powers, but affords no manner of reafon to believe that they are by that event deprived of them. The reason of the thing can furnish no proof that death is the deftruction of a living agent, fince we know not what death is in itself. We behold the diffolution of our flesh and bones; but tbefe we have seen in part alienated and destroyed without any seeming interruption to our living powers. We know not on what these living powers depend, fince the actual exercise and the capa

city of exercifing them are suspended during sleep or a fwoon; yet do they remain undestroyed.— If then we do not know on what they depend, how can we be sure that death will deftroy them?

I am much concerned at the neceffity of breaking off in the middle of this great subject, and of pursuing it through part of the fucceeding Paper. I will try to think, however, that I have raised fufficient curiofity in my readers to insure their acquiefcence. Unless I were to prosecute this subject to the end without interruption, the force of the argument would be diffipated and relaxed; for as I have once already obferved, it is the stress of many particulars, and the accumulation of inftances, that conftitute the ftrength of probable evidence; whereas a fingle demonstration is as good as a thousand.

N° 32.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15.

Συ γας ει ψυχή, το δε σωμα σου, τα δε εκλος το σηματος· HIEROCLES.

Thy foul is thyfelf-thy body thine-thy externals thy body's.

I SHALL in this Paper, as I promifed my read

ers, conclude the subject of my laft; and what room remains will be filled up with fome letters which will accord with the fubject I open with, in as much as, though they do not immediately touch upon religion itself, they will fhew fome of the faireft fruits of it in the conduct of one of its profeffors.

The argument on which we have been building, has more than a negative virtue; for the reafon of the thing does not only afford no proof that death will be the deftruction of a living agent, but it pofitively forbids such a supposition, by proving it to be improbable. A multitude of circumstances and cafes may be adduced in proof of the entire feparate natures of the spiritual and corporeal fubftances their independency, their disparity, and

their disagreement. For though a variety of inftances might be produced, in which they appear to fuffer together, yet, as long as we can argue from fo many in which the one fubfifts in full glory and perfection under the greatest infirmities and afflictions of the other, there is enough to convince us that their connexion is not permanent and neceffary, but temporary and accidental.

I have always admired the force of the Latin word abiit, when I have met with it in the place of mortuus eft; and have ever been delighted with those paffages in heathen authors, in which the native vigour of the mind, prompted by the analogy of nature, springs forth of itself, and grafps a future exiftence, which, though not approaching the Christian immortality, fhews how much our unaided reafon delights to faften on this confoling hope, amidst all its wanderings and perverfions. So feparate in their natures were the foul and the body confidered by Plato and Pythagoras, that they were fond of comparing them to a chariot and charioteer; and according to those great men, we lay down our bodies as we lay down our carriages, hoping to refume them in happier times, and under

circum