METAPHYSICS. 31 



posing it possible that a man, during the course of 

 his life, could fix his mind on one idea, and keep 

 steadily to it ; to him there would be no such thing 

 as time. 



Succession. 



There is a notion which we acquire by reflecting 

 on the train of ideas constantly following one another 

 in our minds. The distance between any parts of 

 this succession is what we call duration. When this 

 flow of ideas ceases, we have no perception of time, 

 or of its duration, but the moment we fall into a 

 sound sleep and that in which we awake seem con- 

 nected. 



The Primordium of Entity. 



The Hindoos believe that all living beings origi- 

 nate from an atom-like germ, virtually endued with 

 life, but inert until placed in a proper medium, when 

 it becomes a punctum saliens or embryo. It is indi- 

 visible and indestructible, and will continue to the 

 end of the world. When a man dies, his body re- 

 stores to the earth and to the other elements, all the 

 augmentation of substance which it had received from 

 them ; but the atom-like germ remains the same. 



Existence. 



Our consciousness, our memory, and every opera- 

 tion of the mind, are still flowing like the current of 

 a river, or like time itself. 



Every body must be imagined in space, and every 

 feeling in time. 



The Vital Principle. 



Life is something that prevents the chemical de- 

 composition to which dead animal and vegetable 

 matter is subject, that regulates the temperature of 

 bodies, and is the cause of the actions we observe in 

 them. 



