CHAPTER XV. OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. A belief in the immortality of the soul has prevailed among men in all ages and in all nations. There are exceptions to this general expectation both in some extremely miserable and degraded savage tribes, and in some individuals of civilized society, whose inquiring disposition disposes them to refuse current ideas until their proper foundation be discerned. This is more especially the case with those whose immoral life has made futurity rather a dreadful than an agreeable anticipation. Yet still the question remains to be answered, whence arises the general belief? Is it a tradition of some ancient revelation? Or is it a natural conclusion of human reason ?-are we so constituted that this belief spontaneously arises in the mind, unless repressed by unfavourable circumstances of rare occurrence? One or other of these opinions must be adopted, and on either supposition the truth of the doctrine follows. For, if God communicated it to man at first by revelation, then his inviolable truth is pledged ;-on the other hand, if the idea be the natural result of that mental constitution which he has given us, ought we not to trace his handwriting in nature as well as in revelation? and is not his truth pledged here also? It may be objected that this belief is not a necessary part of our mental constitution but surely it is the same thing if it be the natural result of it, favoured by its healthy, repressed only by its unhealthy and degraded state. For in the formation of his creatures, God must have contemplated the results of the healthy exercise of their several constitutions, and in those results no less than in the original constitutions, we may read the purposes of Him who cannot deceive. In the flight of those migratory birds, which, at the approach of winter, leave the northern climates, and measure their way over the pathless ocean to warmer countries,-is the fact affected by the inquiry whether this knowledge be an essential part of their original constitution, or whether it be only the result of the natural exercise of some principles of their constitution which are unknown to us? Does God deceive them in the result of these principles? On either supposition is not their long flight directed with unerring certainty to distant and happy lands. But if some philosophic bird should refuse to believe the existence of this unknown, unseen region, or to take so long a flight over the wide sea for an object not of sight but of faith,-it must needs stay at home and perish by cold and hunger, while its less sceptical companions luxuriate in the enjoyment of a rich and genial climate. How analogous the migrations of these feathered tribes to the views and pursuits of those who walk as strangers and pilgrims upon earth, seeking a better country, that is, an heavenly! And how like the sceptic's conduct to the sage ratiocinations of the feathered philosopher!* Not that we would discourage candid inquiry into the reasons of our belief, but the more a candid man inquires, the more cause he will see to yield his unwavering assent to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. For at the For at the very outset of this inquiry we are met by the universal law of state and change, which we have formerly explained. In whatsoever state any thing be, whether motion or rest, motion in this or that direction, and with this or that velocity, solidity or fluidity, life or death, in that state it must continue, unless disturbed or interrupted by some power. If, then, we are now animated by living thinking souls, we are bound to believe that these souls will live for ever, unless it can be shown. - * I owe the idea of this analogy to Sir Humphry Davy, who introduces it in his "Consolations in Travel." that the causes which interrupt and destroy the life of the body are such as can also destroy the life of the soul.* Now it is not so; for what is the death of the body? It is only its disorganization and dissolution: no particle of it ceases to exist; but every particle preserves its own separate nature unimpaired, conformably to the law of state and change. Though, then, the soul be loosed from the body, it must also still continue to exist, for it is one thinking being, and not an aggregation of beings, and therefore cannot be dissolved like the body by separation into parts. The idea of God interposing his power to annihilate it, is impossible to be entertained, for we find it in fact contrary to the whole economy of nature. If he preserve every particle of the body, can we imagine that he will interpose to destroy the more excellent and valuable part, the soul. We may even go farther and affirm, that annihilation is contrary to the essential attributes of God, and therefore impossible. For first to create, and then to annihilate, would suppose mutability of nature in the being who did so: since the purpose to create, and the purpose to annihilate the same thing, are so opposite that they cannot exist together in the same nature at the same time, for if they did + Bishop Butler uses this argument, but does not show for it that certainty of foundation which I have pointed out. He speaks of it as a presumption or probability, and uses it rather to answer objections than to establish a proof. they would neutralize each other, and nothing would be the result. And mutability we have shown to be utterly at variance with the very first idea of God. But it may be said, if any other animals besides man have immaterial souls, (and it will be manifest to every unprejudiced person that the same proof which evinces the immateriality of the human soul, proves also that of the souls of those animals which exhibit undeniable signs of thought and reasoning, as the dog, the horse, the elephant,) then the same argument of immortality will apply equally to their spirits. Dost thou think this a paradox, reader? Courage! I desire thee to cast off every prejudice, and to follow me along this dark and lonely cavern of entrance to the shades. Be not frightened by phantastic shadows, by apparitions of faces grinning at thee, or by seeming obstacles which are but emptiness. These ever hover round the gloomy entrance of this untrodden descent, for no foot of man hath yet passed through its dark recesses, and reached the light of that nether world. But if thou hast followed me hitherto, follow me still. Man and all other animals which think, are not sentient souls, inhabiting insensible material bodies, but they are composed of sentient bodies and intelligent actuating spirits. The body is not a cypher, it is a constituent part of the animal. Now, death being the dissolution of the animal, a |