ordained for the use of man, as one among the various other
excitements necessary to awaken matter into mind. It is an idea
that will be found consistent, equally with the natural phenomena
around us, with the various events of human life, and with the
successive revelations of God to man, to suppose that the world
is a mighty process for the creation and formation of mind. Many
vessels will necessarily come out of this great furnace in wrong
shapes. These will be broken and thrown aside as useless; while
those vessels whose forms are full of truth, grace, and
loveliness, will be wafted into happier situations, nearer the
presence of the mighty maker.

I ought perhaps again to make an apology to my readers for
dwelling so long upon a conjecture which many, I know, will think
too absurd and improbable to require the least discussion. But if
it be as improbable and as contrary to the genuine spirit of
philosophy as I own I think it is, why should it not be shewn to
be so in a candid examination? A conjecture, however improbable
on the first view of it, advanced by able and ingenious men,
seems at least to deserve investigation. For my own part I feel
no disinclination whatever to give that degree of credit to the
opinion of the probable immortality of man on earth, which the
appearances that can be brought in support of it deserve. Before
we decide upon the utter improbability of such an event, it is
but fair impartially to examine these appearances; and from such
an examination I think we may conclude, that we have rather less
reason for supposing that the life of man may be indefinitely
prolonged, than that trees may be made to grow indefinitely high,
or potatoes indefinitely large. Though Mr Godwin advances the
idea of the indefinite prolongation of human life merely as a