the mind. But if the mind be a principle originally capable of thought and felf-motion by its own nature; it follows, that it may, for any thing we know, think and act in one state as well as another; in a future as well as in the prefent. If it were poffible to conceive of a material, thinking, and felf moving principle, which is a flat contradiction, inactivity being infeparable from the idea of matter; yet it would not thence follow, that the thinking principle must lofe its existence at the diffolution of the grois body. The moral proofs for the future existence of the human fpecies would still remain in force, whether we were confidered as embodied fpirits, or as mere body, Nor is there any contradiction in the idea of an immortal body, any more than of an immortal fpirit; nor is any being immortal, but by dependence on the Divine supporting power. Nor does the notion of the poffibility of a faculty of thinking fuperadded to matter at all affect the point in queftion. Though it is certain, that a pretended fyftem of matter with a thinking faculty muft either be nothing more. than matter animated by spirit, or a substance of a quite oppofite nature to all that we call matter, about which we cannot reason, having no ideas of it. Farther, we have reason to conclude, that the body depends on the mind for life and motion; not the mind on the body. We find, that the mind is not impaired by the limbs of the body; that the mind lofs of whole is often very active, when the body is at reft; that the mind corrects corrects the errors, prefented to it through the fenses; that even in the decay, diforder, or total fufpenfion, of the fenfes; the mind is affected just as fhe might be expected to be, when obliged to ufe untoward inftruments, and to have wrong reprefentations, and false impreffions, forced upon her, or when deprived of all traces, and quite put out of her element. For, the cafe of perfons intoxicated with liquor, or in a dream, or raving in a fever, or diftracted, all which have a refemblance to one another, may be conceived of in the following manner. The mind, or thinking being, which at prefent receives impreffions only by means of the material organ of the brain, and the fenfes through which intelligence is communicated into the brain; the mind, I fay, being at prefent confined to act only within the dark cell of the brain, and to receive very lively impreffions from it, which is the confequence of a law of nature, to us inexplicable; may be exactly in the fame manner affected by the impreffions made on the brain by a difeafe, or other accidental caufe, as if they were. made by fome real external object. For example, if in a violent fever, or a frenzy, the fame impreffions be, by a preternatural flow of the animal fpirits, made on the retina of the eye, as would be made if the perfon was to be in a field of battle, where two armies were engaged; and if at the fame time it happened, that by the fame means the fame impreffions fhould be made on the auditory nerve, as would be made if the E 4 perfon perfon were within hearing of the noise of drums, the clangor of trumpets, and the fhouts of men ; how fhould the fpiritual being, immured as fhe is in her dark cell, and unused to fuch a deception as this, how fhould fhe know it was a deception, any more, than an Indian, who had never feen a picture, could find at the first view, that the canvas was really flat, though it appeared to exhibit a landskip of feveral miles in extent? It is therefore conceivable that the mind may be ftrongly and forcibly affected by a material fyftem, without being itself material. And that the mind is not material, appears farther, in that the abftracts herself from the body, when she would apply moft clofely to thought; that the foul is capable of purely abstract ideas, as of rectitude, order, virtue, vice, and the like; to which matter furnishes no archetype, nor has any connexion with them; that it is affected by what is confeffedly not matter, as the fenfe of words heard, or read in books, which if it were material it could not be; which fhews our minds to be quite different beings from the body, and naturally independent on it; that we can conceive of matter in a way, which we cannot of spirit, and contrariwife; matter being ftill to be, with out any contradiction, conceived of as divifible and inactive; whereas it is impoffible to apply those ideas to fpirit, without a direct absurdity, which fhews, that the mind is the fame, confcious, indivisible, identical being, though the body is fubject to continual change, addition, and diminution; that the mind continues to improve in the most noble and valuable accomplishments, when the body is going fast to decay; that, even the moment before the diffolution of the body, the vigour of the mind feems often wholly unimpaired; that the interefts of the mind and body are always different, and often opposite, as in the cafe of being obliged to give up life for truth. These confiderations, attended to duly, fhew, that we have no reason to question the poffibility of the living principle's fubfifting after the diffolution of the material vehicle. As to the difficulty arifing from the consideration of the close connexion between the body and foul, and the impreffions made by the one upon the other, which has led fome to question whether they are in reality at all diftinct beings, it is to be remembred, that this connexion, which is abfolutely necessary in the present ftate, is wholly owing to the divine difpofal, and not to any likenefs, much less famenefs, of the thinking, intelligent agent with the grofs corporeal vehicle. If it had fo pleased the Author of our being, he could have fixed fuch a natural connexion between our minds and the moon, or planets, that their various revolutions and afpects might have affected us, in the fame manner as now the health or diforder of our bodies does. But this would not have made the moon and planets a part of us. No more do the mutual impreffions made reci procally procally by the mind and body, prove them to be the fame, or that the human nature is all body, especially confidering that, as already obferved, in many cafes we evidently perceive an independency and difference between them. It cannot be pretended that there is any abfurdity in conceiving of the animating principle as existing even before conception in the womb, nor of a new union commencing at a certain period, by a fixed law of nature, between it and a corporeal vehicle, which union may be fuppofed to continue, according to certain established laws of nature, for a long course of years; and may be broke, or diffolved, in the fame regular manner; fo that the fyftem of matter, to which the animating principle was united, may be no more to it, than any other fyftem of matter. It is remarkable, that all living creatures, especially our fpecies, on their first appearance in life, feem at a lofs, as if the mind was not, in the infant ftate, quite engaged and united to its new vehicle, and therefore could not command and wield it properly. Sleep, infirm old age, fevere fickness, and fainting, feem, according to certain established laws of nature, partly to loofen, or relax the union between the living principle, the mind, and the material vehicle; and, as it were, to fet them at a greater diftance from one another, or make them more indifferent to one another, as if (fo to speak) almost beyond the fphere of one another's attraction.. Death is no |