148 OF VITAL MOTION. 



mind and body is separable, and to point to death 

 for the proof; and yet, in making this statement, 

 there are some considerations which occur to us 

 as involving certain doubts and qualifications, so 

 that if we are called upon to repeat it, we do so 

 in a more guarded manner. We find, indeed, that 

 we may continue to entertain all the opinions which 

 wrap themselves around the human heart, and believe 

 in all the realities of a future state as we now believe 

 them, without supposing the being to be dissevered on 

 death. It is imagined, indeed, that the spirit hovers 

 within the neighbourhood, without losing all interest, 

 or even influence, in human affairs ; and that it lingers 

 in a more peculiar and special sense about the grave 

 in which the body has been deposited: and it may 

 be asked if this idea is not somewhat at variance with 

 the belief that the spirit has departed altogether from 

 its former companion? N-or is this departure neces- 

 sary for the realization of the verities of a future 

 state ; indeed, it is no more necessary that the scene 

 of future existence should be in a region infinitely 

 remote from our present abode, than that Deity should 

 be so remote. Heaven, we are told by an infallible 

 authority, is not afar, but within, as if the earth itself, 

 when the mists cleared away from the vision, was still 

 a garden in which Deity walked in a visible form; 

 and, on the other hand, there is some ground for sup- 

 posing that the spirit despairs in his ancient haunts, 



