entire dissolution and dispersion of the percipient as well as impercipient parts of the animal machine, of which all the atoms may become afterwards constituent portions of other intelligent beings, it renders a resumed individuality almost, if not altogether, impossible.*

The idea that the essence or texture of the soul consists either wholly or in part of spiritualized, etherial, gaseous, or radiant matter, capable of combining with the grosser matter of the body, and of becoming an object of sense, seems to avoid the difficulties inherent to both systems. It says to the materialist, matter is not necessarily corruptible; as a believer in the Bible, you admit that it is not so upon your own principle, which maintains that the body was incorruptible when it first issued from the hands of its Maker, and that it will be incorruptible upon its resurrection. It says to the immaterialist, the term immaterial conveys no determinate idea; it has been forcibly enlisted into service, and at the same time by no means answers the purpose that was intended. It tells him that it is a term not to be found in the Scriptures, which, so far from opposing the belief that the soul, spirit, or immortal part of man, is either wholly or in combination, a system of radiant or etherial matter, seem rather, on the contrary, to countenance it, not only as I have already observed, by expressly

* See the author's Life of Lucretius, prefixed to his translation of the poem De Rerum Natura, Vol. I. p. 92.

asserting that it was originally formed out of a divine breath, aura, or vapour, but by presenting it to us under some such condition in every instance in which departed spirits are stated to have re-appeared.

Yet it

That a principle of the same kind, though under a less active and elaborate modification, appertains to the different tribes of brutes, there can, I think, be no fair reason to doubt. by no means follows that in them it must be also immortal. Matter, as we have already seen, is not necessarily corruptible, nor have we any reason to suppose, that whatever is immaterial is necessarily incorruptible. Immortality is in every instance a special gift of the Creator; and so wide is the gulf that exists between the intelligence of man and that of the brute tribes, that there can be no difficulty in conceiving where the line is drawn, and the special endowment terminates. It is an attribute natural to the being of man, merely because his indulgent Maker has made it so ; but there is nothing either in natural or revealed religion that can lead us to the same conclusion in respect to brutes; and hence, to speak of their natural immortality is altogether visionary and unphilosophical.

In reality, the difference between this suggested hypothesis and that of the general body of immaterialists, is little more than verbal. For there are few of them who do not conceive. in their hearts (with what logical strictness I stay not to enquire) that the soul, in its separate

state, exists under some such shadowy and evanescent form; and that, if never suffered to make its appearance in the present day, it has thus occasionally appeared in earlier ages, and for particular purposes. Yet what can in this manner become manifest to material senses, must have at least some of the attributes of matter in its texture, otherwise it could produce no sensible effect or recognition. From what remote source universal tradition may have derived this common idea of disembodied spirits, I pretend not to ascertain; the enquiry would, nevertheless, be curious, and might be rendered important it is a pleasing subject, and embued with that tender melancholy that peculiarly befits it for a mind of sensibility and fine taste. Its universality, independently of the sanction afforded to it by revealed religion, is no small presumption of its being founded in fact. But I throw out the idea rather as a speculation to be modestly pursued, than as a doctrine to be precipitately accredited. Enough, and more than enough has been offered, to show that in the abstruse subject before us, nothing is so becoming as humility; that we have no pole-star to direct us; no clue to unriddle the perplexities of the labyrinth in which we are wandering; that every step is doubtful; and that to expatiate is perhaps only to lose ourselves. To show this has beeen my first object; my second has been to conciliate discordant opinions, and to connect popular belief with philosophy.

But I have also aimed at a much higher mark; and have followed up the aim through the general train of reasoning introduced into the preceding divisions of this course of instruction. I have endeavoured to show that, though every part of the visible creation is transient and imperfect, every part is in a state of progression, and striving at something more perfect than itself; that the whole unfolds to us a beautiful scale of ascension, every division harmoniously playing into every other division, and, with the nicest adjustment, preparing for its furtherance. The mineral kingdom lays a foundation for the veget able, the vegetable for the animal infancy for youth, youth for manhood, and manhood for the wisdom of hoary hairs. We have hence strong ground, independently of that furnished us by revelation, for concluding that the scene will not end here: that we are but upon the threshold of a vast and incomprehensible scheme, that will reach beyond the present world and run coeval with eternity. The admirable Bishop of Durham, to whose writings I have already occasionally adverted, pursues this argument with great force in his immortal Analogy, and shows, with impressive perspicuity, the general coincidence of design that runs throughout the natural and the moral government of Providence, all equally leading to a future and more perfect state of things. "The natural and moral constitution and government of the world," says he," are so connected as to make up together

but one scheme; and it is highly probable that the first is formed and carried on merely in subserviency to the latter: as the vegetable is for the animal, and organised bodies for minds. Every act, therefore, of divine justice and goodness may be supposed to look much beyond itself, and its immediate object may have some reference to other parts of God's moral administration and to a genuine moral plan; and every circumstance of this his moral government may be adjusted beforehand, with a view to the whole of it. It is hence absurd, absurd to the de- gree of being ridiculous, if the subject were not of so serious a kind, for men to think themselves secure in a vicious life; or even in that immoral thoughtlessness, which far the greatest part of them are fallen into."*

* Analysis of Religion, Natural and Revealed, Part i. ch. vii. p. 148, 149. 165. Edit. 1802.