THE BELFAST ADDRESS 173 



Hamson and Maxwell delivered in Bradford in 1873 illus- 

 trate the present hold of the doctrine upon the foremost 

 scientific minds. In fact, it may be doubted whether, 

 wanting this fundamental conception, a theory of the ma- 

 terial universe is capable of scientific statement. 



6 



Ninety years subsequent to Gassendi the doctrine of 

 bodily instruments, as it may be called, assumed immense 

 importance in the hands of Bishop Butler, who, in his 

 famous " Analogy of Religion," developed, from his own 

 point of view, and with consummate sagacity, a similar 

 idea. The Bishop still influences many superior minds; 

 and it will repay us to dwell for a moment on his views. 

 He draws the sharpest distinction between our real selves 

 and our bodily instruments. He does not, as far as I re- 

 member, use the word soul, possibly because the term was 

 so hackneyed in his day, as it had been for many gener- 

 ations previously. But he speaks of "living powers/' 

 4 'perceiving or percipient powers," "moving agents," 

 "ourselves," in the same sense as we should employ the 

 term soul. He dwells upon the fact that limbs may be 

 removed and mortal diseases assail the body, the mind, 

 almost up to the moment of death, remaining clear. He 

 refers to sleep and to swoon, where the "living powers" 

 are suspended but not destroyed. He considers it quite 

 as easy to conceive of existence out of our bodies as in 

 them; that we may animate a succession of bodies, the 

 dissolution of all of them having no more tendency to dis- 

 solve our real selves, or "deprive us of living faculties 

 fche faculties of perception and action than the dissolution 

 of any foreign matter which we are capable of receiving 



