§ 6. It is not unlikely, that in thus depreciating the power of unassisted reason to ascertain the truth of a future life, I shall be suspected of favouring some opinions against which much clamour has been raised, viz. that the Soul is naturally mortal-incapable of an existence continued after our dissolution, except from the express decree of the Creator; and that it is a Material Substance, or an Attribute of Matter.

It were to be wished that those who have agitated these questions (and indeed many others) had begun by distinctly ascertaining what they were disputing about; which neither of the parties appears to have attended to. For my own part, I must frankly acknowledge, that I do not understand the questions. If by "nature" is meant the course in which the Author and Governor of all things proceeds in his works, (which is the only meaning I am able to attach to it,) then, to say that the souls of men, if God has appointed that they shall exist for ever, are naturally immortal, is not only an undeniable, but an identical proposition it is only saying that the appointments of Omnipotence will surely take effect. If on the

other hand, when it is said that the Soul is naturally mortal, nothing more is meant than that its existence is maintained after death solely by the agency of divine power; this also I should be disposed not only fully to admit, but to extend to our present existence also; "for in God we live, and move, and have our being:" I cannot myself conceive what are called physical causes to possess power, in the strict sense of the word; or to be capable of maintaining, more

y It is a remarkable circumstance, that both in the Greek and Latin languages, nouns of the neuter gender, i. e. considered as denoting things, and not persons, (for though many, really, inanimate objects were expressed by masculine and feminine nouns, they were personified by the very circumstance, of sex being attributed to them,) invariably had the nominative and accusative the same; or rather, may be said to have had an accusative only, employed as a nominative when the grammatical construction required it; for the nominative, so called, of neuter nouns, corresponds to the accusative (if to any case) of masculines; e. g. the accusative of "dominus" is "dominum ;" and accordingly, under the same declension we have "regn-um," both nominative and accusative. A rule of this kind, extending without exception to several declensions, and both numbers, in two languages, can hardly be a mere accident. May it not have arisen from an indistinct consciousness that a person only can really be an agent; a mere thing, being, in truth, only acted upon?

than of first producing, the system of the universe; whose continued existence, no less than its origin, seems to me to depend on the continual operation of the great Creator. The Laws of Nature, as they are called, presuppose (as Dr. Paley remarks) an Agent; since they are "the modes in which that Agent operates;" they cannot be the cause of their own observance.

The principles here touched upon (which it would be foreign to the present purpose to explain and defend) may, I am aware, be disputed by many who are far from having any leaning towards atheism; but that they are at all of a mischievous tendency, even if erroneous, can hardly be contended by any one of the smallest degree of candour.

The question again respecting the Materiality of the soul, is one which I am also at a loss to

And may not the same cause have led to the practice, in Greek, of joining a neuter plural with a verb in the singular?

I throw out this suggestion with a full expectation that by many it will be derided as fanciful; but they cannot deny that the phenomenon exists, and must have some cause; and it must be allowed that at least the most decisive objection to any proposed solution of it, is, to offer a better.

understand clearly, till it shall have been clearly determined what matter is. We know nothing of it, any more than of Mind, except its Attributes; and (let it not be forgotten) the most remarkable of these are not ascertained. Whether Gravitation be an essential quality of matter is still a question, and likely to remain so, among natural philosophers; who accordingly are divided in opinion whether those commonly called imponderable Substances, Heat, Light, and Electricity, are Substances at all, or not. At any rate, let not the truths of Religion be rested on any decision respecting subtle questions which belong to the Natural-philosopher or the Metaphysician, not the Theologian; nor let our hopes in God's promises be mixed up with debates about Extension, and Gravitation, and Form. The Scriptures in these points leave us just where they found us; giving no explanation of the nature of the Soul, but giving us instead, what is far more important, an assurance that we are destined to live for ever. That this is impossible, and that no revelation is to be received, however attested, which contains this doctrine, we may be assured no metaphysical arguments

will ever prove: and it is on the other hand, I think, equally out of the power of metaphysical arguments to prove the contrary;-to establish, without the aid of divine revelation, the certainty of a future immortality: for if otherwise, whence is it that the wisest of men, when fairly left to themselves, never did arrive at the conclusion, by any arguments which were satisfactory even to themselves? For it should not be forgotten, among other considerations, that none of those who contend for the natural immortality of the Soul, on the ground of its distinct nature from the Body, its incapability of decomposition, &c. have been able to extricate themselves from one difficulty, viz. that all their arguments apply, with exactly the same force, to prove an immortality not only of brutes, but even of plants; though in such a conclusion as this, they were never willing to acquiesce.

Let it be observed, however, once more, that the full assurance of man's immortality is what is here spoken of; which must be carefully distinguished from probable conjecture. It is not denied that arguments have been adduced in favour of this conclusion, which may have been,