204: HUME ix 



ment, may not be the cause of thought. Abstract reason- 

 ings cannot decide any question of fact or existence. But 

 admitting a spiritual substance to be dispersed throughout 

 the universe, like the ethereal fire of the Stoics, and to be 

 the only inherent subject of thought, we have reason to 

 conclude from analogy, that nature uses it after the manner 

 she does the other substance, matter. She employs it as a 

 kind of paste or clay ; modifies it into a variety of forms or 

 existences; dissolves after a time each modification, and 

 from its substance erects a new form. As the same material 

 substance may successively compose the bodies of all ani- 

 mals, the same spiritual substance may compose their 

 minds: Their consciousness, or that system of thought 

 which they formed during life, may be continually dissolved 

 by death, and nothing interests them in the new modifica- 

 tion. The most positive assertors of the mortality of the 

 soul never denied the immortality of its substance ; and 

 that an immaterial substance, as well as material, may lose 

 its memory or consciousness, appears in part from experi- 

 ence, if the soul be immaterial. Reasoning from the com- 

 mon course of nature, and without supposing any new inter- 

 position of the Supreme Cause, which ought always to be 

 excluded from philosophy, what is incorruptible must also 

 be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed 

 before our birth, and if the former existence noways con- 

 cerned us, neither will the latter. Animals undoubtedly 

 feel, think, love, hate, will, and even reason, though in a 

 more imperfect manner than men : Are their souls also im- 

 material and immortal f " * 



* " None of those who contend for the natural immor- 

 tality of the soul . . , have been able to extricate them- 

 selves 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 are never willing to acquiesce." 

 Whately, I c. p. 67. 



