attempt to show, that on this most momentous question, the voice of reason re-echoes back the truths of Revelation, and that the calmest assent of philosophy coincides with the firmest conviction of faith. Many causes are now conspiring to increase the trunk of infidelity, but materialism is the main root of them all. Are we to live after death? and if we are, in what state? The second question evidently depends upon the first, for he that feels no conviction as to the certainty of a future life, will not be over-solicitous as to the condition of it; for to common minds the greatest things are diminished by distance, and they become evanescent, if to that distance be added doubt. But should the doubt of futurity introduce the denial of it, what must then be the result? all that endears us to our fellow men, and all that exalts us above them, will be swallowed up and lost, in the paltriness of the present, and the nothingness of now. The interests of

society demand that a belief in a future state should be general; the probability of such a state, is confirmed by reason, and its certainty is affirmed by Revelation. I shall confine myself altogether to such proofs as philosophy and reason afford, and in so doing, I shall attack neither motives But if an argument can be proved to be false in its premises, absurd in its conclusions, and calamitous in its consequences, it must fall; we cannot desire it, because it has nothing to allure, and we cannot believe it, because it has nothing to convince.

nor men.

The analogical* method of proof has very lately been

Analogy is a powerful weapon, and like all instruments of that kind, is extremely dangerous in unskilful hands. The grounds of probability which this mode of reasoning affords, will be more or less firm in proportion to the length, the frequency, and the constancy, of the recurrence of the phænomena, on which the analogy itself is built. In some cases analogical proof may rise almost to mathematical certainty, as, when from the undeviating experience of the past, we anticipate the future, and affirm that the sun will rise to-morrow. On other occasions, where the phænomena have occurred at long and broken intervals, and with no regard to dates or periods, the analogical presumption of their recurrence will mount no higher than the lowest stage of proba

resuscitated for the purpose of destroying the immortality of the soul. A bold and fresh attempt has been made to convert analogy into the As 8 σr of materialism, by the help of which, as by a lever, the Archimedes of scepticism may be enabled to overturn, not earth indeed, but heaven! Analogy has in fact supplied the first stone of the foundation, and that alone; but infidelity has reared the superstructure, with an industry as fertile of resource, and we might add, of invention, as that of the children of Israel, who continued to deliver in the tale of bricks, after the materials were denied. As much talent has been displayed in the support of these opinions which I am contributing my efforts to controvert, and as some of the positions on which the inferences are built, will be conceded, I think it right to commence, by observing, that falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and that no opinions so fatally mislead us, as those that are not wholly wrong, as no watches so effectually deceive the wearer, as those that are sometimes right.

The argument I contend against is this: "The mind," (we are told)" is infantile with the body, manly in the adult, sick and debilitated by disease, enfeebled in the decline of life, doting in decrepitude, and annihilated by death." Now it so happens that out of all the positions which make the links in this formidable analogical chain, the first alone is universally true, and disturbed by no exceptions; the intermediate links are sometimes right, and sometimes wrong, and the last is mere assertion, wholly unsupported by proof. The unibility, and will in no way affect the common concerns and business of life. It is on this principle that the inhabitants of Lisbon sleep securely in their beds, without any very disturbing perplexities on the probabilities of an earthquake. Where the phænomena occur with regularity, as in eclipses, mere distance of time does by no means invalidate the analogical proof, save and except that in consequence of the shortness of life, the verification of such phænomena, must be matter of testimony, rather than of experience. So powerful, however, is analogy, that in most disputes it has been courted as an ally by both parties; it has even sent arguments, as Switzerland troops, to both sides, and its artillery has at times by both been overcharged, until it has reacted upon themselves. VOL. II.

D

versal history of man, our own experience, and the testimony of others, are full of instances that clearly prove that the assertions which intervene between the first and the last, are as often false as they are true. And this is more than we want; for I must beg my reader's attention to this particular circumstance, namely, that one exception to each of the assertions advanced above, must necessarily be as fatal to the annihilating clause which is inferred from them, as one million. For if there be any force in that mode of argument which has been termed the reductio ad absurdum, it is evident that a single exception to each of the intermediate assertions, between the first position, and the last, forces the materialist upon the monstrous necessity of admitting two discrete orders of men, and that there is one law of existence for one description, and a second for another. For if we pursue the analogy no further than history, experience and observation warrant, and this is the only logical mode of pursuing it, we are then forced upon the absurdity mentioned above. For the only analogical chain which the facts authorise us to form is as follows: the mind is infantile with the body, it is sometimes manly in the adult, sometimes sick and debilitated by disease, sometimes enfeebled in the decline of life, sometimes doting in decrepitude, and sometimes annihilated by death!!!

But if the mind be only sometimes annihilated with the body, it must sometimes survive it; but an argument that would make one class of men mortal, and another immortal, by proving too much, proves nothing, and must fall by its own absurdity.

"Circa Deos negligenter quippe addictus mathematicæ," is an accusation that is not, I fear, confined in the present day to any particular pursuit; for as there have been some mathematicians so devout as to fancy they have discovered the trinity in a triangle, so there are some anatomists who will not believe in the existence of a soul, because they have never yet been able to transfix it upon the point of their knife; and yet methinks there is one circumstance that ought

to lower the dogmatical confidence of the materialist, and this is, that mind happens to be the only thing on whose existence we can by intuition itself rely. We may go on heaping proof upon proof, and experiment upon experiment, to establish, as we suppose, the reality of matter, and after we have done all this, I know not of one satisfactory answer that we could give, to those who chose to affirm that with all our pains, we have only established the reality (not of matter, but) of sensation. We may also doubt about the existence of matter, as learnedly and as long as we please, as some have done before us, and yet we shall not establish the existence of matter by any such dubitations; but the moment we begin to doubt about the existence of mind, the very act of doubting proves it.

Another great source of error, in this most important of all questions, is the mistaking of a strong but inexplicable connection, for an inseparable identity. But, in the first place, I should humbly conceive that it is quite as unphilosophical to say that a lump of brain thinks, as that an eye sees; the one indeed ministers to thought, as the other to vision; for the eye, although it be necessary and subservient to vision, can, strictly speaking, no more be said to see, than a microscope or a telescope; it is indeed a finer instrument than either, but still an instrument, and capable of being assisted by both. This observation would apply, mutatis mutandis, to all of the senses, but I have selected that of vision, as the most refined. We all know that the two eyes paint two minute and inverted images of an object, upon the retina; having done this, they have done all that is expected of them. What power is it then that rectifies all the errors of this machinery, as to number, position, and size, and presents us with one upright object, in its just di mensions and proportions. All this is certainly not effected by the eyes, for a paralysis of the optic nerve instantly and totally destroys their powers, without in the slightest manner affecting their organization. The optic nerve then, it seems, and the eye, are both necessary to vision, but are

they all that is necessary? certainly not; because if we proceed a little farther we shall find that certain effects operating upon the brain, will completely and instantly destroy the powers of vision, the optic nerve and the eye both remaining unaltered, and undisturbed. How then are these effects produced; are their causes always mechanical as from pressure, or the violence of a blow? no, they are often morbid, the result of increased action, brought on by inflammation, or of diseased structure superinduced by abscess. But are there not causes neither morbid nor mechanical, that have been found capable of producing similar effects? yes—a few sounds acting on the tympanum of the ear, or a few black and small figures scribbled on a piece of white paper,* have been known to knock a man down as effectually as a sledge hammer, and to deprive him not only of vision, but even of life. Here then we have instances of mind acting upon matter, and I by no means affirm that matter does not also act upon mind; for to those who advocate the intimate connection between body and mind, these reciprocities of action are easily reconcileable; but this will be an insuperable difficulty to those who affirm the identity of mind and body, which however is not for us, but for those who maintain this doctrine, to overcome. But if mind be indeed so inseparably. identified with matter, that the dissolution of the one must necessarily involve the destruction of the other, how comes it to pass that we so often see the body survive the mind in one man, and the mind survive the body in another. Why do they not agree to die together? How happened it that the body of Swift became for so many years the living tomb of his mind, and, as in some cases of paralysis, how are we to account for the phænomena of the body, reduced to the most deplorable and helpless debility, without any corresponding weakness or hebetation of the mind. Again, if the mind be indeed not the tenant of the corporeal dwelling, but an absolute and component part of the dwelling itself, where does the mysterious but tangible palladium of this temple reside? Where are we to go to find it, since if material, why can it

* See Mr. Rennells' Pamphlet.