that thinks and acts, is one permanent and individual principle, diftinct from all other principles, beings, or things;these are dictates of internal fenfation natural to man, and univerfally acknowled ged; We perceive the existence of our fouls by intuition; and this I believe is the only way in which the vulgar perceive it. But their conviction is not on that account the weaker: on the contrary, they would account the man mad who should feem to entertain any doubts on this fubje&t. One of the first thoughts that occur to Milton's Adam, when "new waked from foundest fleep," is to inquire after the cause of his existence: A "Thon fun, faid I, fair light! "Ye hills, and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains, "Tell me, how I may know him, how adore, Paradife Loft, viii. 273. Of the reality of his own life, motion, and exiftence, it is obfervable that he makes no queftion; and indeed it would have been frange if he had. But Dryden, in his opera called The ftate of Innocence, would needs attempt. an improvement upon this paffage; and, to make furer work, obliges his hero to prove his exiftence by argu ment, before he allows him to enter upon any other inquiry: "What ged; and they are of fo great importance, that while we doubt of their truth, we can hardly be interested in any thing else whatfoever. If I were to believe, with Mr HUME, and fome others, that my mind is perpetually changing, fo as to become every different moment a different thing, the remembrance of paft, or the anticipa→ tion of future good or evil, could give me neither pleasure nor pain; yea, tho' I were to believe, that a cruel death would certainly overtake me within an hour, I fhould be no more concerned, than if I were told, that a certain elephant three thousand years hence would be facrificed on the top of Mount Atlas. To a man who doubts the individuality or identity of his own mind, virtue, truth, religion, good and evil, hope and fear, are abfolutely nothing. Metaphyficians have taken fome pains "What am I? or from whence? For that I am "What other being can disclose to me?" Att 2. fcene 1. Dryden, it seems, had read Des Cartes; but Milton had ftudied nature: Accordingly Dryden peaks like a metaphyfician, Milton like a poet and philofopher. to we to confound our notions on the fubject of identity; and, by establishing the currency of certain ambiguous phrafes, have. fucceeded fo well, that it is now hardly poffible for us to explain these dictates of our nature, according to common fenfe and common experience, in fuch language as fhall be liable to no exception. The misfortune is, that many of the words muft ufe, though extremely well understood, are either too fimple or too complex in their meaning, to admit a logical definition; fo that the caviller is never at a lofs for an evafive reply to any thing we may advance. But I will take it upon me to affirm, that there are hardly any human notions more clearly, or more univerfally understood, than those we entertain concerning the identity both of ourfelves and of other things, however difficult we may fometimes find it to exprefs thofe notions in proper words. And I will alfo venture to affirm, that the fentiments of the generality of mankind "on this head are grounded on fuch evidence, that he who refuses to be convinced by it, acts irrationally, and cannot, confiftently with fuch refufal, believe any thing. 1. The exiftence of our own mind, as fomething different and diftinct from the body, is universally acknowledged. I fay univerfally; having never heard of any nation of men upon earth, who did not, in their converfation and behaviour, fhow, by the plaineft figns, that they made this diftinction. Nay, fo ftrongly are mankind impreffed with it, that the rudest barbarians, by their incantations, their funeral folemnities, their traditions concerning invisible beings, and their hopes and opinions of a future ftate, feem to be perfuaded, that to the existence of the foul the body is not at all neceffary. All philofophers, a few Pyrrhonists excepted, have acknowledged the existence of the foul, as one of the first and most unquestionable principles of human science. Now whence could a notion fo univerfal arife? Let us examine our own minds, and we fhall find, that it could arife from nothing but confcioufnefs, a certain irresistible persuasion, that we have a foul diftinct from the body. The evidence of this notion is intuitive; it is the evidence of internal fenfe. Reasoning can neither prove nor difprove it, DES CARTES, and his difciple MALE MALEBRANCHE, acknowledge, that the existence of the human foul must be believed by all men, even by those who can bring themselves to doubt of every thing elfe. Mr Simon Browne *, a learned and pious clergyman of the last age, is perhaps the only perfon on record of whom there is reason to think, that he seriously dif believed the existence of his own foul. He imagined, that in confequence of an extraordinary interpofition of divine power, his rational foul was gradually annihilated, and that nothing was now left him, but a principle of animal life, which he held in common with the brutes. But where-ever the ftory of this excellent fon is known, his unhappy mistake will be imputed to madness, and to a depravation of intellect, as real, and as extraordinary, as if he had difbelieved the existence of his body, or the axioms of mathematics. per 2. That the thinking principle, which we believe to be within us, continues the fame through life, is equally felf-evident, See his affecting story in the Adventurer, vol. 3. N9 88. and |