PERSONAL IDENTITY,

I shall consider as existing in the essence of man; it seems formed of or consists in the action of the brain and nerves, which are the causes of intellect; when this action ceases, memory ceases, and with it identity, for many remember nothing that occurred before the age of ten, and none before the age of two years; so that identity is often annihilated during the existence of the body. Identity of mind and body can never be fixed by matter, for that transmutes and exchanges itself for fresh matter every moment, and the mind suffers the same changes; so that identity dwells only in the action of the nervous system, which communicates and perpetuates itself to fresh matter; and causes this canal or mould of matter to be sensible of pain and pleasure; and a higher consciousness of intellectual existence of I, you, and they, directs the machine to pleasure, and teaches it to avoid pain, and proves that the dissolution of I, you, and they, by death, or by want of memory, is the same thing. Nature will perpetuate your identity in her own; nerves will vibrate in future identities, in which you will participate as you did in the personal one at two years old, though you have lost all remembrance of it; and I, you, and they, mean no more than parts of the eternal integer, Nature.

I, you, and they, being seperated into moulds, into which Nature runs its plastic matter, take particular forms, and these being used or broken, are restored to the great mass, fermented or mixed up therewith, and return to the mould as before. Of the potter who executes this work, or the cause of motion in matter, we can

have no idea.

All attempts of the human mind to discover the first cause of motion, are as weak and puerile an act as jumping up to catch at a star; an enlightened mind never attempts to discover the primary cause of motion, even in

its own existence, but contents itself with the secondary causes producing volition, and will entirely occupy itself to discover means to direct that motion or volition, with which it is impelled in a direct line to well-being or happiness.

The known causes of volition are hunger, lust and fear; the first to support, the second to propagate, and the third to preserve the existence of the animal; these, the known causes of moral motion, called passions are conveyed by means of the nerves to the mind. Let us now observe, what are the powers to direct these passions to their end.

Impressions made upon the animal by means of the 'senses or corporeal nerves, terminate in the brain, and form what is called the mind, which is made up of the faculties of conception, memory and judgment; conception collects the outward objects, or forms types thereof; memory preserves them when once received; and judg ment, by associating them properly, gives the sentiment or opinion, which is the cause of volition and action. These form a triumvirate, which, if the colleagues were all equally good, would guide the animal unerringly to the end of existence, happiness; but should it happen that one of these is corrupted, the other two must be infected, and incapable of government.

Thus, if the animal is impressed by means of the visual sense, with the appearance of an egg; he is at that time impelled with the passion of hunger. A priest tells him he must not eat it; his conceptions are perverted by the ideas of the priest, his memory burthened and incumbered with falsehood, and his judgment corrupted by the maladministration of its colleagues. In the same manner the gratifications of the other passions may be impeded, and the animal propelled in a line contrary to that of happiness.

Volition of the passions and power of judgment to direct it, require that the latter should be under no control, in order for the animal to be in a state of well-being, in dividually. But, as such a state is incompatible with

the excellence of his nature, we must consider him in union with others of his species.

By this union, however, he can give up none of his individual liberty; he associates to facilitate and secure the free operation of his mental faculties, and of his volition. In the first associations among mankind, if the free will of man had been forced or violated, the passion of fear would immediately have dissolved the assembly. We may suppose in this first state of society, any two men under the impulse of the same passion of hunger, lust or fear; if they found an egg, would they contend for it or divide it? If judgment was weak, as in the brute creation, they would contend for it with their lives, but if strong they would certainly divide the egg, as no one could hope to preserve his own person inviolate, if he encroached on the liberty of another. In like manner, should a woman present herself to two men, both being under the impulse of the passion of lust; if savages they would contend for her like brutes; if wise, to secure the freedom of their own will, they would assimilate it to hers.

For man to obtain well-being or happiness, it is necessary that he should enjoy an absolute state of liberty, to will for himself, but not for others; which may be effected by means of good government and good education, which will reciprocally correct and reform each other.

Personal identity is that state of matter in which it possesses a consciousness of existence, and power of motion to procure happiness for the present, and thereby perpetuate it in every stage of its transmutation or revolution; and no change of that identity by loss of memory or by death, can dissolve the connection with its integer Nature, but like a river absorbed by the ocean, it transmutes into all forms of matter, and returns to rivers again.

The vegetables, animals and water, incorporate every day by aliment, [and air by breathing] into self or identity; it is of consequence therefore to all Nature, that this duct

duct, through which they are to pass, should communicate to them happiness. Self or identity is the union of this various matter, organized to feel pleasure and pain or consciousness of existence which is continued by the influence of memory. Vegetables, animals, rivers, [air, caloric, electricity,]-all Nature-are interested in the intellectual and corporeal organization of this common duct called personal identity; and since its interruptions or cessations never affect the immortality of Nature, it is the interest of matter in motion to procure happiness to matter out of motion, which will be reciprocated and perpetuated, if intellectualized matter should be influenced by the above reflections.

The mind, being strongly impressed with the immortal connection between self and Nature, expands its bounds of existence, and acquires a new intellectual essence; and though elevated beyond the essences of fellow-selves, yet in the wisely measured gratification of the sensual and full enjoyment of intellectual pleasures, it condescends into the orbit of society, and there, by a nice economy of reason and passion, plucks the roses of pleasure, and erases those thorns of pain, to which the institutions of ignorance have subjected the whole human species, and which error or vanity, co-operate to per petuate.

This vast and important sentiment of the immortal connection of self and Nature, regenerates its authors in the instant of its conception, and causes the exalted character, which the ethics and example of ages could never produce a man whose heart, finding or sufficient aliment for its universal sympathy in the contracted segments of parental, social, patriotic, and human affection and love, expands to the great circle of sensitive Nature, and dries up the source of evil with the ardor of its benevolence: and whose existence so elevated, if not tempered by great wisdom, would find no medium of happiress in the society of ignorant creatures, or fellow selves, or parts of the common integer of Nature.

SELF.

[CONTINUED.]

THE study of this important, but unknown and neg lected subject, will explain all the mystery of the moral world. Self is God-self is religion-self is virtue, wisdom, truth and happiness. The greatest power and operation of the mental faculties is, to invert and reflect on self: for he who gains a knowledge of himself, will know how to love himself, and by making self happy, will communicate happiness to all animated matter. Philosophers, or those who, having broken the bonds of puerile error, thought themselves wise, have all been ignorant of self, and have called treason against the sacred majesty of self, by the names-" virtue" and "duty," and have lead mankind from the mist of error, to sink them into its abyss.

The investigation of self demands an uncommon exertion of the intellectual faculties, and is a phenomenon as rare in the moral world, as would be a river in the physical world, [if endued with consciousness,] attempting to flow back to its source, to discover in order to pu rify it. If the mind in this stupendous attempt should not be steady, or make its progress in a direct line, it will be neither cause of wonder nor reproof.

Self is formed of a body of organized matter, producing volition or moral motion, to give life and mind or understanding, to direct that body or machine, called man, to the well-being of his essence, or a happy state.

When the mind has, by the arduous process of abstraction from education, custom and will, reached its source, or that point of issuing where its motion is visi ble, it surveys the plains, and selects that channel to bound its course, which will convey fertility to its world, or happiness to itself.