in all ages and nations that we continue to live after death,--that
apparent termination of all the functions of sensitive and intellectual
existence. Nor has mankind been contented with supposing that
species of existence which some philosophers have asserted; namely,
the resolution of the component parts of the mechanism of a living
being into its elements, and the impossibility of the minutest
particle of these sustaining the smallest diminution. They have
clung to the idea that sensibility and thought, which they have
distinguished from the objects of it, under the several names
of spirit and matter, is, in its own nature, less susceptible of
division and decay, and that, when the body is resolved into its
elements, the principle which animated it will remain perpetual
and unchanged. Some philosophers-and those to whom we are indebted
for the most stupendous discoveries in physical science, suppose,
on the other hand, that intelligence is the mere result of certain
combinations among the particles of its objects; and those among
them who believe that we live after death, recur to the interposition
of a supernatural power, which shall overcome the tendency inherent
in all material combinations, to dissipate and be absorbed into
other forms.

Let us trace the reasonings which in one and the other have conducted
to these two opinions, and endeavour to discover what we ought to
think on a question of such momentous interest. Let us analyse the
ideas and feelings which constitute the contending beliefs, and
watchfully establish a discrimination between words and thoughts.
Let us bring the question to the test of experience and fact; and
ask ourselves, considering our nature in its entire extent, what
light we derive from a sustained and comprehensive view of its
component parts, which may enable, us to assert, with certainty,