We are now to confider whether, in the reafon 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 expreffed in the word continuance, which feems our only natural reason for believing that the course of this world will be to-morrow, as it has been fo 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 apprehen fion that death will deftroy a living agent, whatever confufed fufpicion, prior to the natural and moral proofs to the contrary, might arife from the terrors of imagination, that the fenfible shock of that event most involve our complete deftruc tion; for if there be no ground for thinking that E 5 death

death will deftroy our living powers, why not conclude, as we do in respect to the courfe of nature, that, as we know they exift up to that event, they will exift after it? If there be any distinct 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 lose them by death: for we have no faculties to trace any beyond, or through it, so as to see 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 reason 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 exercife and the capa

city of exercifing them are fufpended during fleep 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 destroy them?

I am much concerned at the neceffity of breaking off in the middle of this great fubject, 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 profecute this fubject 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 ftrefs 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 γαρ ει ψυχή, το δε σώμα σου, τα δε εκτος τ8 σώματος HIEROCLES.

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

I SHALL in this Paper, as I promised my readers, conclude the fubject 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 fuch a fuppofition, by proving it to be improbable. A multitude of 'circumftances and cafes may be adduced in proof of the entire feparate natures of the spiritual and corporeal fubftances their independency, their disparity, and

their difagreement. 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 thofe paffages in heathen authors, in which the native vigour of the mind, prompted by the analogy of nature, fprings forth of itself, and grasps a future existence, which, though not approaching the Christian immortality, fhews how much our unaided reafon delights to fasten on this confoling hope, amidst all its wanderings and perversions. 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 cha-. rioteer; and according to thofe great men, we lay down our bodies as we lay down our carriages, hoping to refume them in happier times, and under

circum