370 



ON MATERIALISM AND IMMA TERIALISM, 



hands of its Maker, and that it will be incorruptible upon its resurrection. 

 It says to the im materialist, the term immaterial conveys no determinate 

 idea ; it has been forcibly enlisted into service, and at the same time by 

 no means answers the purpose that was intended. It tells him that it is a 

 term not to be found in the Scriptures, which, so far from opposing the be- 

 lief that the soul, spirit, or immortal part of man, is either wholly or in 

 combination, a system or radiant of ethereal matter, seems rather, on the 

 contrary, to countenance it, not only as I have already observed, by 

 expressly asserting that it was originally fV)rmed out of a divine breath, 

 aura, or vapour, but by presenting it to us under some such condition in 

 every instance in which departed spirits are stated to have re-appeared. 



That a principle of the same kind, though under a less active and ela- 

 borate modification, appertains to the different tribes of brutes, there can, 

 I think, be no fair reason to doubt. Yet it by no means follows that in 

 them it must be also immortal. Matter, as we have already seen, is not 

 necessarily corruptible, nor have we any reason to suppose, that whatever 

 is immaterial is necessarily incorruptible. Immortality is in every instance 

 a special gift of the Creator ; and so wide is the gulf that exists between 

 the intelligence of man and that of the brute tribes, that there can be no 

 difficulty in conceiving where the line is drawn, and the special endowment 

 terminates. It is an attribute natural to the being of man, merely because 

 his indulgent Maker has made it so. But there is nothing either in natu- 

 ral or revealed religion that can lead us to the same conclusion in respect 

 to brutes ; and hence, to speak of their naturalimmortality is altogether 

 visionary and unphilosophical. 



In reality, the difference between this suggested hypothesis and that of 

 the general body of immaterialists, is little more than verbal. For theref 

 are few of them who do not conceive in their hearts (with what logical 

 strictness I stay not to inquire) that the soul, in its separate state, exists 

 under some such shadowy and evanescent form ; and that, if never suf- 

 fered to make its appearance in the present day, it has thus occasionally 

 appeared in earlier ages, and for particular purposes. Yet what can in 

 ^ this manner become manifest to material senses, must have at least some 

 of the attributes of matter in its texture, otherwise it could produce no 

 sensible effect or recognition. From what remote source universal tradi- 

 tion may have derived this common idea of disembodied spirits, I pretend 

 not to ascertain ; the inquiry would, nevertheless, be curious, and might 

 be rendered important : it is a pleasing subject, and embued with that 

 tender melancholy that pecuharly befits it for a mind of sensibility and fine 

 taste. Its universality, independently of the sanction afforded to it by 

 revealed religion, is no small presumption of its being founded in fact. 

 But I throw out the idea rather as a speculation to be modestly pursued, 

 than as a doctrine to be precipitately accredited. Enough, and more 

 than enough has been offered, to show that in the abstruse subject before 

 us, nothing is so becoming as humility ; that we have no pole-star to 

 direct us : no clue to unriddle the perplexities of the labyrinth in which 

 we are wandering ; that every step is doubtful ; and that to expatiate is 

 perhaps only to lose ourselves. To show this has been my first object ; 

 my second has been to conciliate discordant opinions, and to connect 

 popular belief with philosophy. 



But I have also aimed at a much higher mark ; and have followed up 

 the aim through the general train of reasoning introduced into the preceding 

 division of this course of instruction. I have endeavoured to show that, 

 though every part of the visible creation is transient and imperfect- 



