REESE LIBRARY 1 Ht UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Received ^S%& CUJ i<\*JLt_ (J ^ion ,\o. 2* W-? ^ She If _\ "o PHYSICAL THEORY OF ANOTHER LIFE BY TH-A'U'TEOR OF NATURAL HISTORY OF ENTHUSIASM. cot SK TOVTCOV rr\v Tt ainav U3STIVERSITY NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON & Co. 200 BROADWAY. 1836. G. F. HOPKINS & SON, PRINTERS. PREFACE. DURING the years that have elapsed since the Author projected his literary course, a great change has taken place in the relative position and the reciprocal feelings of the religious parties that divide the country. Eight or ten years ago, and even later, many auspicious indi- cations of peace and union met the eye ; and an enter- prise might seem hopeful which had for its object the removal of obsolete causes of disagreement. It then seemed as if, at last, ancient misconceptions might safely and successfully be dealt with. But an unlocked for course of events has dissipated, for the present, these happy presages, and has given a vehement excitement to sentiments which the lovers of peace had fondly believed were fast disappearing ; so that it would now be idle to hope for a dispassionate hearing upon subjects that touch the differences between party and party. In its bearing upon his own literary projects and en- gagements, the Author has felt, every day with fresh force, that the revolution of public feeling to which he has alluded must render the prosecution of the plan he had devised, and which he has announced, and in part executed, peculiarly difficult, if not impracticable ; as well as hopeless of a beneficial issue. The subjects included in his plan have become the very themes of PREFACE eager contention; nor could he believe that, while satis- fying his own convictions of truth, he should be able to avoid the taking a side, and the ranging or the being ranged, with one body of Christians, against others. In fact he has found himself nearing the abyss of strife ; and he steps back in haste. The present state of ecclesiastical excitement will however, no doubt, in a few years, subside, and a calmer season once again smile upon the Christian common- wealth. Should he live to see the happy days of tran- quillity and good will, the Author would gladly resume the difficult, and as he believes, important subjects, which at present he lays down. He now returns to the favourite and peaceful themes of his earlier meditations and studies ; and is most happy to find himself in a re- gion not exposed to storms. There are two perfectly distinct modes in which the influence of the highest truths may be increased : the one is to remove, so far as it may be done, the prejudices and perversions that have been amassed around them. The other method is, forgetting any incidental causes of obstruction, to hold forth, in its native brightness, the substance of those truths. The Author, in his desire, he believes a sincere desire, to promote, to the utmost of his power, these inestimable principles, at first at- tempted to accomplish his object in the former method ; he now attempts it in the second. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Preliminary Cautions, and Statement of the Subject 9 CHAPTER II. The Conditions of Corporeity, whether animal or spiritual ....... 26 CHAPTER III. The probable Prerogatives of Spiritual Corporeity, as compared with Animal Organization : the first of those Prerogatives . . . .44 CHAPTER IV. The second and third supposed Prerogatives of the Spiritual Economy 55 CHAPTER V. The fourth of these Advantages . .64 CHAPTER VI. The fifth and sixth hypothetical Prerogatives of the Spiritual Body 73 CHAPTER VII. The seventh probable Advantage of the Future Life 85 CHAPTER VIII. The eighth Prerogative, according to our Hypothe- sis, of Spiritual Corporeity . . . .93 CEI AFTER IX. The ninth Point of Advantage belonging to the con- trast between Animal Organization and Spiri- tual Life 105 CHAPTER X. The balanced probability of Happiness or Misery, involved in the Physical Theory of another Life 112 Vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. Probable point of contrast between the Animal and Spiritual Body, in the principle of their con- struction, respectively .... 129 CHAPTER XII. The Transition of Human Nature from Animal to Spiritual Corporeity, a natural, not a miracu- lous event ....... 136 CHAPTER XIII. The Survivance of Individual Character, and of the Moral Consciousness . . . . .150 CHAPTER XIV. Correspondence between the Present and the Fu- ture Employment of the Active Principles of Human Nature . . . . . .160 CHAPTER XV. Introductory to some Conjectures concerning the Correlative Construction, and Reciprocal Des- tinies of the Material and Spiritual Universe 170 CHAPTER XVI. The first Conjecture concerning the Material Uni- verse, viewed as the theatre of an Intellectual System 183 CHAPTER XVII. The second Conjecture . . . . .195 CHAPTER XVIII. The third Conjecture ..... 232 CHAPTER XIX. The general ground of Conjectural Reasoning con- cerning what is unseen or future . . 246 CHAPTER XX. On the Advancement of Pneumatology . . 264 UJTIVEBSITY &c. &c. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY CAUTIONS, AND STATEMENT OP THE SUBJECT. THE knowledge of a future life we may easily ima- gine to have been conveyed to us through some other channel than that of the Christian writings. In that case we should have felt no fear of culpable presumption while using any means of further information, concern- ing the destiny of the human family, which might have come within our reach ; and if the mode of our obtain- ing this knowledge had been natural and ordinary, we should, without scruple, have prosecuted our inquiries in the spirit, and with the freedom, that belong to other physical researches. In truth, if the human family is to live anew, the future stage of its existence offers itself to our curiosity as a proper branch of the physiology of the species ; and it only remains to be asked, whether we are in pos- session of any sufficient materials for prosecuting the 2 . 10 PHYSICAL THEORY subject : if we are, then the circumstance that our expectation of immortality forms a part of our belief as Christians, and rests under the sanction of divine au- thority, need not bar our researches, or prevent our doing . what otherwise we should certainly attempt, if it appeared that a careful analysis of human nature might actually enable us to conceive rationally of the functions and prerogatives of our approaching mode of existence. What is to be guarded against, as well in respect to the sanctity of religion, as in deference to the principles of good sense and sound philosophy, is, in the first place, the indulgence of the imagination ; for it is not from that quarter we can expect any aid ; and in the second place, the supposition that any hypothesis, formed on a subject of this kind, how plausible soever it may seem, is, or can be, more than a rational conjecture ; or that it can rightfully have any force in disturbing our re- ligious convictions. On the path we are about to pur- sue, no practical evil will arise so long as we carefully abstain from the error of confounding the deductions of reason with the testimony of the inspired writers, nor ever allow any part of the authority or the serious and sacred import that attach to the latter, to be extended to the former. As the impulse of a "fleshly mind" to in- trude into " things not seen," is a grave fault, and espe- cially so if, on the strength of even the most reasonable theory, we are led to bring into question a particle of that which the text of scripture, duly interpreted, requires us to believe. Yet there is a path (as the author thinks) which runs clear of both the errors above mentioned, and in follow- ing it, as we propose to do, we shall at once discard the gay dreams of the fancy, fraught with the images of OF ANOTHER LIFE. earth, and hold every thing light which countervails, or which will not readily consist with, the sure words of Christ and his apostles. Our conjectures are conjec- tures merely ; or even if in any instance they might chal- lenge a higher value, or whatever may be their solidity, they are, at the best, matters of science, not of piety ; nor is our faith in any way obliged by them ; nor can our Christianity be implicated in the remotest manner in the establishment, or in the refutation of any such specula- tions. Let them be confirmed, or let them be confuted, still, as expectants of that " life and immortality" which is brought to light by the gospel, we look on with no solicitude while reason attempts the arduous path that is open to her efforts. It is very true that Christianity has suffered damage by vain and presumptuous intrusions into its mysteries ; but it may also be injured, and perhaps in a more fatal although more silent manner, by a cold withdrawment of all attention and all curiosity from the high themes of meditation which it involves. In fact this is the very danger to which our religion is now exposed ; nor is a too eager regard to things unseen by any means the fault of our times. There may then be a seasonable- ness in the endeavour to engage attention upon the tran- quil but vivifying anticipation of another life ; and it is always true that a distinct and familiar conception of it must aid us, as well in resisting the seductions of the present life, as in sustaining its pains and sorrows ; nor does all the help we can obtain of this kind always prove enough to ensure a due repose of mind amid the agi- tating alternations of hope and fear that attend our path. If it be true that human nature, in its present form, is 12 PHYSICAL THEORY only the rudiment of a more extended and desirable mode of existence, we can hardly do otherwise than assume that the future being must be so involved in our present constitution as to be therein discernible ; and that a care- ful examination of this structure, both bodily and mental, with a view to the supposed reconstruction of the whole, may furnish some means of conjecturing what that future life will be, at least in its principal elements. It remains then to be seen whether something of this sort may not be effected ; and in attempting it we are not left totally at large, or without hints of the path we should attempt ; for the inspired writings, always listened to where they give any distinct testimony, and narrowly scrutinized also in every instance of a casual allusion to facts not ex- plicitly revealed, will furnish a guidance such as may save endless wanderings in a false direction. Yet in using this guidance, the conditions that belong to it should be borne in mind, lest we should be led astray by taking it for what it is not. These conditions must then be briefly adverted to before we advance further. Nothing, it is manifest, remains to be desired in phi- losophy beyond the attainment of absolute truth; and therefore, as the inspired writings, within their province, convey truth, and truth only, it might seem that, on every subject to which their evidence extends, we have but to admit it, and there to rest. Yet it must not be forgotten that truth, in the scriptures, is always presented under some special aspect, or as seen from a particular position, or as bearing upon some definite human affec- tion or immediate duty : it is not truth in the abstract : it is indeed a pure element ; but it is a particle only of that element ; and therefore will not stay the inquiries OF ANOTHER LIFE. 13 of minds of philosophic cast, which, by instinct, rise from what is partial to what is general, and are impelled to pursue the universal wherever they touch particulars. Such minds may indeed (and if sound they often will) see good reason for stopping short where the means of acquiring further knowledge are totally wanting; nor will they reluctate to confess their ignorance in all such instances. Nevertheless they must still resist the in- terdiction of those who would require them to profess that such particles are actually the whole truth, and all that could possibly be known. There is to be observed a manifest distinction be- tween what immediately concerns us in relation to the Divine government, which it is indispensable we should well understand, and what relates to the constitution of the invisible world, to other orders of being, or to the future physical condition of the human race. It is to subjects of the former sort, chiefly, that the inspired writers direct our attention, while they only glance, in- cidentally and very hastily, at subjects of the latter class. Not only do they abstain from conveying truth in univer- sal and abstract terms, but they very rarely touch at all any theme that can be considered as a proper object of scientific curiosity. This is now well understood, and therefore the attempt is no longer made to discover la- tent systems of physical science in the language of the Bible ; and it is agreed on all hands that although Moses and the prophets contradict nothing which our modern science has demonstrated, it formed no part of their com- mission to embed a scheme of the universe in the He- brew text. And if physics and astronomy are not to be sought there, neither are metaphysics, nor psychology, nor pneumatology to be inquired for from the inspired 2* 14 PHYSICALTHEORY writers, notwithstanding that these subjects are much more nearly related to the principles of religion than the former can be. What we may fairly rely upon is this, that, in their incidental allusions to the constitution or destinies of the great intellectual system, and while they are passing over ground where we have no other direct means of information, the inspired writers never lead us astray ; or, when fairly interpreted, give rise to sup- positions that are altogether unfounded, and contrary to fact. And more than this we may well believe that, so far as they go, they furnish us with an incidental gui- dance, of which we may safely avail ourselves while pursuing inquiries of a scientific kind. In relation to the unseen world, scripture is to be listened to much as we might listen to an ambassador from a distant coun- try, who, while earnestly discharging the special duties of his office, and while urging at large the political and commercial interests of his sovereign, might make many allusions and employ many phrases, which, when col- lected and attentively considered, would serve to convey some good general notion of the climate, usages, and wealth of his native land. It is thus then that we propose to keep an ear open to the apostolic voice, while endeavouring, by another process than that of biblical interpretation, to unfold the rudiments of the future life ; always respecting the sacred canon, and ever and again reverting to it as an infallible means of keeping ourselves near to the true path of inquiry. And with the very hope of making an auspicious commencement, and with the view of start- ing from solid ground, so that our first steps at least may be sure, we shall devote a page to an apostolic OF ANOTHER LIFE. 15 affirmation, which indeed might serve as the text of our dissertation " There is, " says St. Paul, " a natural body, and there is a SPIRITUAL BODY :" the natural, or animal first, and then the spiritual ; and these, while agreeing in certain general conditions, are contrasted in some important respects ; yet both serve as the vehicle and instrument of the higher principle of our nature. The animated argument carried on through the fif- teenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, stands alone, or nearly so, in the body of scripture, as well as to its subject, as its style ; for we meet with nothing elsewhere within the inspired pages so much resembling a physiological disquisition, or any thing that goes so far in setting before us, at one view, the natural history of man, considered as destined to immortality. And yet this argument does not depart so widely from the customary style of scripture, as to be otherwise than tropical in its terms, and popular, rather than strictly scientific, in its mode of reasoning and its illustrations. While, therefore, it may suggest the course we should pursue, and prevent our setting out in a wrong direction, it cannot be held to supersede the sort of inquiry which we have now before us. The leading affirmation of St. Paul's argument we may consider to be the one just quoted, and the import of which we may properly inquire into, as a preliminary to the statement of our physical theory of another life. " THERE is A SPIRITUAL BODY." It is then BODY, and not mere spirit, to which the reasoning of the apostle relates. He is treating of the transition which human nature is destined to pass through, from one condition of corporeal existence to another ; and he speaks of the lay- 16 PHYSICAL THEORY ing down a body that is gross, or at least infirm, perish- able, and ignoble, and the taking up a body that shall be potent, illustrious, and permanent. For aught we know, there may be a pure immateriality, or an absolute separa- tion from matter; and moreover, some such state of sheer incorporeity may perhaps await the human race in some stage of its progress toward its ultimate condition ; but no abstraction of this kind is either affirmed or im- plied in the passage before us ; nor does it enter into St. Paul's argument, even by so much as a passing allusion, or a solitary phrase, thrown in to save a collateral truth. We should be far indeed from thence inferring that an immaterial state, in the fullest sense of the term, is not in itself possible, or may not actually have to be passed through by mankind ; for arguments drawn from nega- tive evidence are always extremely fallacious. Never- theless, so far as this passage goes, the doctrine of an ab- solute incorporeity, as possible to human nature, may be true, or it may not. The grand, or foremost principle of Christianity, namely, the resurrection of the dead, does not demand any such doctrine, nor does the apostle (who was personally well qualified to judge of the hidden, yet real connexion of principles) deem it necessary to his conclusion, or at all pertinent to his subject to affirm it. If questioned on the point, whether the human soul is ever actually and entirely separated from matter, it is not improbable that he would have dismissed the inquiry as altogether irrelevant to religion, and as a theme proper to be discussed among the professors of abstruse science, with which he, as a teacher of Christianity, had nothing to do. That which Christianity requires us to believe is the actual survivance of our personal consciousness embo- OF ANOTHER LIFE. 17 died, and the perpetuity of our sense of good and evil, and our continued sensibility of pain arid pleasure, and the unbroken recollection, in another life, of the events and affections of the present state. What Christianity decisively affirms is, that the LIFE, moral, intellectual, and active, or corporeal, is not commensurate with, or dependent upon, animal organization ; but that it may, and that it will spring up anew from the ruins of its pre- sent habitation. " Destroy this body," and the man still lives : but whether he might live immaterially, is a mere question of philosophy, which the inspired writers do not care to decide. In almost all instances it is with facts, rather than with abstruse principles, that they have to do ; and in relation to our present subject, after having peremptorily affirmed that human nature is to survive in another state, and is to rise embodied from the ashes of its present animal organization, St. Paul leaves specula- tion at large, neither denying or affirming any hypothe- sis that may consist with the fact which alone is impor- tant with our religious belief. Let it then be distinctly kept in view", that although the essential independence of mind and matter, or the ab- stract possibility of the former existing apart from cor- poreal life, may well be considered as implied in the Christian scheme, yet an actual incorporeal state of the human soul, at any period of its course, is not necessarily involved in the principles of our faith, any more than it is explicitly asserted. This doctrine concerning what is called the immateriality of the soul, should ever be treated as a merely philosophical speculation, and as un- important to our Christian profession. The question then, concerning pure immateriality, we regard as having been passed, untouched, by St. Paul ; nor do we con- 13 PHYSICALTHEORY sider it as in any specific manner important to the inqui- ries upon which we are about to enter. Nevertheless, there may be an advantage in concisely stating what seems to be the present relative position of the two par- ties in the old controversy concerning matter and mind : a controversy very like to die away for ever. The antagonist principles are then thus balanced. Two classes of facts, readily distinguishable, present themselves to our consciousness : those of the one class we involuntarily attribute to an external world, and think of as the consequences of our connexion with mat- ter, or as the effects which its properties produce upon our minds. But those of the other class we as invaria- bly regard as belonging to the mind, and as arising from itself; and they are, many of them at least, of a sort which we might easily imagine to have place, if there were no external world, or if the mind had no sentient know- ledge of its existence. Theory and speculation apart, the entire mass of our consciousness resolves itself, natu- rally and easily, into these two elements ; and it is only by the temporary force of some arbitrary system of philoso- phy, that we can be brought to regard the two elements as essentially one and the same ; and the constitution of our minds reluctates every moment at the violence done it by any such means. But notwithstanding the remonstrances of common sense, the attempt has in every age been renewed, on the one side by the materialist, and on the other by the spi- ritualist (if we may so use the term) to melt down these two elements into a mass, or to annul the distinction be- tween them ; the one by affirming that mind is mere organization, or a product of matter ; and the other, by alleging that those varied sensations or states of the mind OF ANOTHER LIFE. 19 which, by " a natural prejudice," we attribute to an ex- ternal material world, are in fact nothing more than peculiar conditions of the mind itself, and that there nei- ther is an external world, nor can be ; or that even if there were, we could never have any substantial proof of its existence. Now the two parties, if indeed two such parties may be said to be yet extant, have nearly come to an agreement on one point, namely, that our belief of the reality of mat- ter and of mind can never be made to stand together as collateral truths, equal in authority, and resting upon the same sort of evidence, and ascertained by the same pro- cess of reasoning. If at last they are to consist one with the other, the one must be assumed as intuitively cer- tain, and as incapable of proof by reasoning ; while the other must thence be derived in the way of inference, and must, however well proved, yet take a secondary place in the order of things known. Which of the two then shall we assume as needing no proof, and employ as a fulcrum of argument in proving the other, or in dis- proving it ? The materialist and in this argument the materialist must take the atheist as his companion, the materialist says " It is impossible forme to doubt the existence of matter ; for it is under my touch, it is before my eyes, and its properties are the subject of the only sciences that are absolute in their method of reasoning, and infal- lible in their results. But as to mind, otherwise than as it is merely a function of animal organization, or a pro- duct of cerebral secretions, I know nothing, and can know nothing of it, and the inquiry concerning it ever has been, and must always remain obscure and unsatis- factory." 20 PHYSICALTHEORY But the spiritualist contemns this summary treatment of the argument by his antagonist, as crude and illogical, and such as can satisfy none who are competent to ana- lyse strictly their own consciousness. He affirms that this statement of the case by his opponent takes for granted the very facts that are to be proved; and in re- ply to the materialist, he says " All that I contend for, and which I affirm to be intuitively certain, and known without proof, you first tacitly assume, and then formally deny. What are all these sensations of touch and sight, and what are these demonstrations of mathematical sci- ence of which you speak, but so many slates of the mind so many mental phenomena, as I may term them, which, while they imply necessarily the existence of mind, do but render the existence of matter probable ; or at best demonstrate its reality by a circuit of reason- ing ? I will grant you that an external world may exist, and I believe that it does exist : but this very belief, let it rise as high as it may, together with the argument that sustains it, are still only so many elements of my mental consciousness, and can never nullify or annihilate that of which they are parts." This skepticism concerning the reality of matter, and an external world, which is of a far more subtile and sweeping kind than that of the materi- alist concerning mind, he finds it impossible to supplant ; and he feels himself undermined in his assault upon spiritualism, and his foot sinks whichever way he endea- vours to advance. His opponent therefore leaves him with this defiance " Prove the existence of an external world if you please, or if you can ; and I too believe it to exist ; but I believe it by inference ; and therefore hold it as a truth, if not inferior in certainty, yet assur- edly as subordinate to that primary truth the existence of mind." OF ANOTHER LIFE, 21 Now even if it were granted that a due regard to the constitution of the human mind, its physiology obliges us to receive its instinctive and involuntary conviction of the reality of an external world as a proper evidence of its existence, and as superseding all reasoning on the subject, so that the two truths should be considered as alike intuitively known, still the spiritualist will retain the advantage he has gained over his opponent; for it is manifest that, if there be room at all for hesitation or skepticism in relation to either truth, it is matter, not mind, that is in jeopardy. The very ground of the assumption that the existence of an external world ought to be admitted as certain, without reasoning, is nothing else but a consideration of the laws or constitution of the mind. Mind, therefore, and its elementary principles, stands first in logical order ; and the existence of matter follows, if not as an inference, yet as a truth to be af- firmed after another has been granted. The bearing of this controversy upon Christianity may thus be stated : The doctrine of the materialist, if it were followed out to its extreme consequences, and con- sistently held, is plainly atheistic, and therefore incom- patible with every form of religious belief. It is so because, in affirming that mind is nothing more than the product of animal organization, it excludes the belief of a pure and uncreated mind the cause of all things ; for if there be a supreme mind, absolutely independent of matter, then, unquestionably there may be created minds also independent of matter. But if the materialist is ready to admit, as he usually does, the divine exist- ence and the pure spirituality of the divine nature, and if he professes to mean nothing more than that created minds are in fad always embodied, and that, apart from 3 22 PHYSICAL THEORY some material structure or animal organization, there is no consciousness or activity, then, and in this sense un- derstood, materialism becomes a doctrine of little or no importance to our faith as Christians, for it may consist well enough with what is affirmed in the scriptures con- cerning the immortality of man, the resurrection, the intermediate state, and the existence and agency of invisi- ble orders. On the other hand, although the great prin- ciples of theology are saved and respected by the spirit- ualist, yet, if he goes so far as to call into question the reality of the external world, and the material universe, it will not be without having recourse to very subtile modes of reasoning, and to abstruse distinctions, that he can reconcile this sort of skepticism with the plain sense and explicit affirmations of the inspired volume. Moreover, as Christianity, by its characteristic temper, distastes phi- losophic refinements of all sorts, it will reject a theory which tends to introduce a species of mysticism, scarcely less atheistic than the bolder doctrine of the materialist. To bring into doubt in any way (and it is of little moment in what way, or on what pretext,) that which the common sense of mankind has always assumed to be certain, is if not to shake the evidence of all truth, yet to paralyse the faculty by which evidence of any kind is seized and held. Whether you rob a man of his treasure, or disable the hand that grasps it, you do him an equal injury ; or perhaps we should say that the latter is the worse wrong of the two. Our present passing reference to this controversy may be dismissed with affirming the probability that it will ere long become totally extinct; for as the atheistic mate- rialist finds himself dislodged from his too hastily assumed position, by a skepticism more profound and refined than OF ANOTHER LIFE. 23 his own, he is not likely again to provoke discussion on the subject ; while, on the other hand, the spiritualist, who would never have entertained or advanced his skep- ticism concerning the external world, if he had not been incited to do so, as a summary means of dealing with the atheist, will no longer have any urgent motive for reviving the argument after it has been generally con- fessed that philosophic atheism is indefensible. Thus, as we may fairly hope, the two worlds of matter and mind will henceforward be permitted quietly to coexist. But be this as it may, the doctrine of the scriptures concerning the destiny of man, stands untouched : or, to revert to the argument of St. Paul on the subject of the resurrection, it is altogether independent of any such abstruse questions, inasmuch as it is BODY, and not spirit about which he reasons. His interrogatories and his replies, may be reduced to these ' Have the dead ceased to exist? Have those who are fallen asleep perished 1 No ; for there is a spiritual body, and an- other vehicle of human nature, as well as a natural body; and therefore the dissolution of this animal structure leaves the LIFE untouched.' The animal body is not itself the life, nor is it the cause of life : nor again is the spiritual body the life, nor the cause of it ; but the one as well as the other are the instruments of the mind, and the necessary medium of every specific and productive exercise of its faculties. The Christian scriptures then, and St. Paul, specifically affirm, not any abstruse metaphysical doctrine concern- ing mind and matter ; but the simple physiological fact, of two species of corporeity, destined for man ; the first, that of our present animal and dissoluble organization, 24 PHYSICAL THEORY which we share, in all its conditions, with the irrational sentient tribes around us ; and the second a future spiritual structure, imperishable, and endowed with higher powers, and many desirable prerogatives. Now having the sanction of this inspired affirmation of these two kinds of corporeity, and intending to in- quire concerning the probable prerogatives of the future human body ; it is natural that we should first state what appear to be the essential conditions of corporeity, whe- ther animal or spiritual, so that before we come to ask wherein the spiritual body shall excel the animal body, we may understand what it is in which the two must be supposed to agree. We assume the reality and independence of mind and matter ; and yet suppose that, although intrinsically un- like, and capable of existing, the one without the other, nevertheless that, as they coexist, so are they intimately blended, and reciprocally affect each other within the circle of sentient and active life. Body, whether animal or spiritual, is a third essence a middle nature, and the means of the reciprocity of the two unlike substances. Body is the tangential point of the two worlds of mind and matter; or it is the amalgam of two substances wherein the properties of both are so blended as to con- stitute a mean, essentially unlike what could have re- sulted from any possible construction of the one, by itself. The body is to the mind the means of a mode of existence, and the organ of an exertion of powers which, in its incorporeal state it could never have known and exercised. If, metaphorically speaking, matter is refined and ennobled by its union to mind, it is mind that is really advantaged thereby, for it is absolutely indiffer- ent to matter whether it be left in a grosser state, or be OF ANOTHER LIFE. 25 wrought into a more elaborate form. On the contrary, by compounding itself with matter, mind takes posses- sion of a world foreign to itself; and, in a sense, doubles its powers of action and its sphere of existence. 26 PHYSICALTHEORY CHAPTER II. THE CONDITIONS OF CORPOREITY, WHETHER ANIMAL OR SPIRITUAL. THE blending of mind and matter in the bodily struc- ture of the sentient and rational orders, we may be as- sured, is a method of procedure which, if it be not abso- lutely indispensable to the final purposes of the creation, subserves the most important ends, and carries with it consequences such as will make it the general, if not the universal law of all finite natures, in all worlds. A little attention to what is involved in the idea of corporeal existence will incline us to believe that it is the basis of intellectual activity of moral agency, and of commu- nion or sociality among intelligent orders. In stating these common prerogatives, or conse- quences of corporeity, we of course leave out of view whatever seems proper to animal organization merely ; and we then ascend by abstraction, as high as we can go, toward the few essential conditions of the combina- tion of mind and matter. And first, without question, we must affirm that Body is the necessary means of bringing Mind into relation- ship with space and extension, and so, of giving it PLACE. Very plainly, a disembodied spirit, or we should rather say, an unembodied spirit, or sheer mind, is NO WHERE. Place is a relation belonging to exten- OF THE UinVERS.IT 1 OF ANOTHER LIFflL />> ^ O^7 ^^ K. ^ sion ; and extension is a property of which is wholly abstracted from matter, and in speaking of which we deny that it has any property in common therewith, can in itself be subject to none of its condi- tions ; and we might as well say of a pure spirit that it is hard, heavy, or red, or that it is a cubic foot in dimen- sions, as say that it is here or there. It is only in a popular and improper sense that any such affirmation is made concerning the Infinite Spirit, or that we speak of God as every where present. God is in every place in a sense altogether incomprehensible by finite minds, inasmuch as his relation to space and extension is pecu- liar to infinitude. Using the terms as we use them of ourselves, God is not here or there, any more than he exists now and then. Although therefore the idea may not readily be seized by every one, we must neverthe- less yield it to be true that, when we talk of an absolute immateriality, and wish to withdraw mind altogether from matter, we must no longer allow ourselves to imagine that it is, or can be, in any place, or that it has any kind of relationship to the visible and extended universe. But in combining itself with matter, by the means of a corporeal lodgement, mind brings itself into alliance with the various properties of the external world, and takes a share in the conditions of solidity and ex- tension. Thenceforward mind occupies one place, at one time, moves from place to place, and may follow other minds, and be followed by others ; it may find and be found ; it may be detained, or be set at large ; it may go to and fro within a narrow circle, or it may tra- verse a wide circle ; and while, by this same means, the material universe is opened to its acquaintance, it is also restricted in its opportunities of acquiring knowledge by PHYSICAL THEORY its subjection to the laws of gravitation and motion : we may then with some degree of confidence regard a cor- poreal state as indispensable to the exercise of active faculties, to a scheme of government, and to a social economy. That which is finite a finite mind for example, must, as we are inclined to think, become subject to some ac- tual limitations, and must undergo some specific rela- tions, before its faculties can come into play, or be pro- ductive of effects. There is reason to conjecture (per- haps stronger terms might be used) that none but the Infinite Spirit can be more than a latent essence, or inert power, until compacted by some sort of restraint. The union with matter, or the coming into a corporeal state, may be in fact, not a degradation to mind, but the very means of its quickening its birth into the world of knowledge and action. The first consequence of this birth is, as we have said, the acquirement of locality in the extended universe. But in the second place, a relationship not at all less important than the preceding, is undoubtedly dependent upon the union of the mind with matter, or upon its cor- poreity ; namely, its relationship to TIME. Consequences the most momentous, and which per- haps we do not often think of, connected as well with our intellectual and active, as our moral life, attach to our connexion with that equable motion by which dura- tion is at once measured and made sensible to us. Nor is it easy to conceive of a social economy and system of government, in a world where all were not held to one and the same rate of intellectual movement, through their contemporary period. Familiar as we are, and have al- OF ANOTHER LIFE, 29 ways been with the equal periods that are marked for us by the celestial and telluric revolutions, we think it only natural, and a matter of course, that our individual con- sciousness of duration should flow on equably, and that this consciousness of time in one mind, should pretty nearly keep pace with the same feeling in other minds. But a little attention to some familiar facts, as well as to the reason of the thing, will convince us that, for this equable consciousness, or perception of the steady flow of time, we are wholly indebted to external and artificial means, deprived of which our notion of duration, and our recollection of the successive parts of it, would be the most variable and illusory of all the conditions of our existence ; nay, utterly irregular and unfixed, so that, according to the ever varying velocity of our mental states, a minute might seem a century, or a century a minute. We must indeed still (as finite beings) know ourselves to be flowing along a line, or as existing in- stant by instant ; but should have no means of determin- ing the rate, or of rendering it equable. Let the reader, by a little effort, imagine himself to- tally cut off from all connexion with the clock-work of the material universe ; uninformed of the alternations of day and night, and of summer and winter remote from the swing of the pendulum, and unconscious also of the beating of the pulse, of the heaving of the chest, of the sensations of hunger and satiety, of sleep and wakefulness : in such a state of absolute seclusion from all the mechanical and animal indices of equable motion that is to say, knowing nothing of time, he must very soon, or as soon as the previously required habit of the mind had become indistinct, cease to be conscious of any other difference between a long period 30 PHYSICAL THEORY and a short one, than that which might be derived from the actual equableness of his thoughts and emotions ; and if these at some seasons (as in fact they do) follow- ed one the other with incalculable rapidity, while at another season a single idea or emotion remained fixed in the mind, there would be no possible means of his ascertaining whether, since a certain mental state or epoch, he had existed an hour, a day, a year, a century, or a thousand years. Thus insulated from equable motion, we should not be able to correct our individual consciousness of duration by comparing it with that of others under like circumstances ; for while one, by the peculiar constitution of his mind, would tell us an eter- nity had elapsed since we last conferred with him, an- other, either more inert, or more addicted to dwell upon abstractions, would say it was only yesterday when we compared eras. To MERE MIND, a long period means nothing else but a period in which it has passed through many and various states with a vivid consciousness and distinct recollection of each ; and a short period is one during which few ideas or emotions have sluggishly fol- lowed each other, or have intently engaged it, or, whe- ther few or many, have clean passed from the memory. Yet the former may in fact have been only a tenth or a hundredth part of the latter. Every one's experience in dreaming, or in sickness, may furnish him with facts il- lustrative of the unfixedness and illusory quality of our consciousness of duration, when entirely deprived of the external means of collating our mental history with the regular motions of the material world. It is motion that measures duration, and Time is du- ration, measured into equal parts by the equable motion of bodies through space. But as motion belongs to OF ANOTHER LIFE. 31 matter, of which it is a condition, and is that wherein duration and extension combine to form a common pro- duct, so mind must become related to extension, in order to its having any knowledge of motion, or to its being able to avail itself of the measurement of duration ; in other words, it is only in connexion with matter that it can know any thing of time. Minds embodied, not only learn to measure out their own existence equally, and to correct the illusions of which otherwise they would be the sport, but also, by an insensible habit, come to exist at a more even velocity, if we may so speak, than could else be possible, and learn unconsciously to put a curb upon the excessive and dangerous rapidity of thought ; while in other cases a spur is supplied for the sluggishness of the mind, or a remedy found for its undue fixedness ; and thus all minds are brought to move together, at nearly the same rate, or at least as nearly so as is essential for securing the order and harmony of the social system. We should not be warranted in affirming that mere minds, or unembodied spirits, could not, by any means purely immaterial, be- come conscious of the equable lapse of duration. But we see in fact that it is exclusively through the corporeal alliance of mind with the external world, that this im- portant rectification of its consciousness is effected ; nor would it be difficult to specify some very momentous consequences attaching to the government of the moral system, that may perhaps be found to result from a sus- pension, or from the restoration of this means of know- ing the lapse of time. In truth, a speculation of this 4dnd, if pursued in all its bearings, might lead to our taking a new view, not merely of the economy of the human system, but of that world of animal life and PHYSICAL THEORY enjoyment by which we are surrounded. We are ac- customed to take it for granted that all creatures are living at one and the same rate, or that they are go- ing by our clock ; whereas in fact, if we duly consi- der the analogies of the system of nature, we shall see reason to conjecture that, while perhaps some species of animals are living much slower than ourselves, others may be living inconceivably faster. It is by no means unphilosophical to imagine that the ephemera of a sum- mer's noon, which we are apt to pity as short lived, may, in the compass of their few sunny hours, be running through a century of joyous sensations; and if the microscope, which exposes to our view the vivacious tenants of a drop of water, had the power also of laying open the whirl of the sentient faculty of these tribes, it might ap- pear, to our amazement, that the busy history of a thou- sand years is compacted into their life of a day or an hour, so that the diminutiveness of their visible organs is even less astonishing than the compression of their consciousness. These speculations are however foreign to our immediate purpose. Nevertheless we must follow them a single step fur- ther, so as to point out a not improbable consequence of the principle upon which the visible universe is con- structed : we mean that of the subdivision of the mass into spheres, revolving in precise times, and each world, as it seems, being furnished with a double or treble mea- surement of time, by its annual and diurnal rotations, by its cycle of seasons, and by the revolution of its satel- lites. In looking abroad upon the thickly peopled fields of space, wherein all worlds are made subject to the law of equable motion, who can resist the belief that this stupendous machinery, (whatever other purposes its re- OF ANOTHER LIFE. volutions may subserve) is a vast horology a register of duration, to all rational tribes, and a means, indis- pensable to the purposes of universal government, of holding all minds to the due symphony of time. As all minds, by the means of corporeity are connected with extension, and are limitted to place, so are all, by the same means, and by the revolution of the worlds they inhabit, bound down to time. There may be intelligent orders, so fiery in temperament, that, but for this physical check, this necessity of keeping pace with the slow march of the planetary bodies, they would outrun their term, and leave their ranks in the steady movement of the great social system. Are there, on the other hand, minds secluded from the sight of the visible heavens, and shut out from every means of reckoning years and cen- turies ? Such may be passing through a state and pro- cess during the continuance of which the perception of time would be no boon. In the third place, as the corporeal alliance of the mind with matter is seen to be in fact the means of ex- posing it passively to the properties of the material world, and thus of making it liable to pleasures and pains not proper to itself, and to some of the most intense kind, so may this connexion be universally necessary for the same end. In truth, the pleasures and the pains to which the mind is laid open by its amalgamation with matter in the body, are so intense as to take the lead, for the most part, in determining its active and moral destiny. If in- deed the mind were not inherently susceptible of im- pressions from the properties of matter, it is not any ani- mal organization that could render it so. Nevertheless it is probable that sensation is the result of corporeity, 4 34 PHYSICAL THEORY or an effect not taking place apart from that intimate blending of the two alien substances of which the body is the medium ; or it may be only as embodied that the perceptions of the mind are definite and distinct. In illustration of this alleged consequence of corporeity, as the necessary means of rendering the mind conscious of the properties of matter, we might refer to the instan- ces, so frequent in chemical science, in which two sub- stances remain in juxta position, without in any manner affecting each other, or combining, until the presence of a third substance puts their affinities into action. It is thus that the presence of heat, or of electricity, or of oxygen, or of water, is the means of forming innumera- ble compounds, or of dissolving them. And so, as there is room to conjecture, the unknown principle of life, may be the third power, or element, the agency of which brings mind into conscious connexion with matter, render- ing it sensible of light, and colours, of heat, solidity, sound, tastes, smells, motion, and all their variations of intensity. Embodied, the mind, by a process of natural and involuntary education, becomes familiar with a cer- tain set or circle of the properties of the material world ; and though still unconscious, probably, of many other of its properties, yet gains an acquaintance with it in all the points that are important to its present welfare ; and thus, as in a foreign school, brings its otherwise latent faculties into exercise. Moreover it is as embodied that the mind comes under the potent and sovereign dis- cipline of organic pleasures and pains and how large a portion of its history hinges upon this susceptibility ! There is no reason (at least we have no reason) to be- lieve that, apart from body, or in a purely incorporeal state, the mind could either enjoy or suffer in any other manner than intellectually. Probably the whole of that OF ANOTHER LIFE. peremptory and efficacious impulse which is necessary for putting the intellectual and moral faculties in activity, and for maintaining their activity, springs from this ex- posure of the mind to the stimulating properties of mat- ter; that is to say, from its corporeal constitution. But then, and in the fourth place, this same intimate connexion between mind and matter, while it exposes the mind, passively, to the influence of matter, becomes, in return, the means of its exerting a power (and how exten- sive and mysterious a power is it !) over the solid masses around it. Mind, embodied, by a simple act or volition, originates motion. That is to say, its will or desire, through the instrumentality of muscular contractions, as applied to the body itself, or to other bodies, puts it or them in movement. This power of the mind in over- coming the vis inertice of matter, and the force of gravi - tation, is the only active influence in relation to the ma- terial world, which we have a certain knowledge of its pos- sessing ; for, as is obvious, the various combinations of substances that are brought about by the skill of man, are all indirectly effected through the instrumentality of the muscular system ; nor can it be ascertained whether the chemical changes and assimilations that are carried on in the secreting glands, and the viscera, are effected by an unconscious involuntary mental operation. This organic influence excepted, supposing it to exist, the mechanical power of the mind is the only one it enjoys ; but this it enjoys, as we shall again have occasion to observe, in no mean degree. It may, without much hazard, be assumed that motion, in all instances, originates in an immediate volition, either of the supreme, or of some created mind, and that this power is exerted by the latter through the 36 PHYSICAL THEORY means of a corporeal structure. In what way this same power may in future be extended or enhanced we shall soon have to inquire. Hitherto we have considered those consequences or prerogatives of corporeity, which have an immediate rela- tion to the material world, and in which consists the mind's direct alliance with matter. But there are other conse- quences of this same alliance that fall in upon the mind itself, and which, if they do not originate some of its ope- rations, or modes of feeling, yet modify them to a great extent. Thus, and in the fifth place, it is to its corporeal con- nexion with the external world that must be attributed the mind's liability to various mixed emotions, as well pleasurable as painful, of the class called imaginative. These emotions, often of the most powerful kind, and which are neither merely animal or organic, nor purely intellectual or moral, mingle with all other elements of our nature, and modify, abate, or stimulate every func- tion of the active and moral life. The sense of fitness, of beauty, of sublimity, of terror, of harmony and music, and their opposites, give rise, in their various complex forms, to sentiments and to modes of action such as are scarcely more foreign to what belongs to brute life, than they are to what might belong to mind in a state of absolute abstraction from matter. Each of these sensi- bilities and tastes, with its endless combinations, is, in a sense, a product of the material universe, and is directly consequent upon a corporeal mode of existence. The imaginative sentiments might perhaps, at a first view, be regarded as being of temporary use only, inas- much as they constitute a reconciling medium between OF ANOTHER LIFE. 37 the animal and intellectual principles. But, in consider- ing them further, it appears that they go beyond this lower office, and in fact mingle themselves with the very highest and purest of our moral feelings. We ought then to reckon them among the noble and permanent elements of our nature, and must therefore assume that they will belong to the spiritual, as they have belonged to the ani- mal body. If man were animal only, he would neither need, nor indeed could he possess an imaginative faculty; or, on the other hand, if he were rational only, or moral only, the class of sentiments that arise from this faculty he would spurn (could he conceive of them) as degrad- ing, or as illusory ; inasmuch as they present something which is either more or less than absolute truth, reason, and rectitude. Or if man, being at once animal, moral, and rational, were yet destitute wholly of imagination and of its sensibilities, he would painfully want harmony and combination ; and would be compelled, every hour, to pass, with a shocking abruptness, from one mode of ex- istence, and from one principle of life to another, without the aid of any transition-feelings. But as we are actu- ally constituted we find within the circle of our mental economy nothing so purely rational, (not even mathema- tical truth) and nothing so simply moral, as not, by the medium of imaginative tastes, to be brought into alliance, remotely at least, with animal sensations ; nor, on the other hand, is there any thing so merely sensual as not to be, in some measure, relieved, ennobled, or graced by an intermixture of ideas of beauty and order. Now the body, with its organic impressions, is manifestly the means of effecting this harmony of the various elements of our mental constitution, and so of generating complex sentiments of a sort which we should most reluctantly 38 PHYSICAL THEORY lay aside, even although the primary purpose they were intended to subserve, in relation to the present life, were superseded. Our speculation must not hastily be condemned as a mere subtilty, when we assume it to be probable that the correspondence of finite minds with the Infinite Mind needs to be attempered by an admixture of those imaginative sentiments which take their rise in the cor- poreal constitution. Those organic and quelling impres- sions of beauty, sublimity, majesty, and those feelings of awe, and of ecstacy, and that adoration in which a latent dread or terror imparts intensity to the happier feeling of affection all these mixed emotions shall perhaps be found necessary, as well for keeping finite minds in the place that becomes them, as for enabling them to sustain the immediate presence of the bright and absolute per- fection. The imaginative sentiments may thus serve at once to facilitate a nearer approach to the ineffable glory than would otherwise be possible, and to fence off the mount of vision, if we may so speak, against dangerous intrusions. If this conjecture be well founded, we may be inclined to suppose that all rational orders are made to commence their course under the condition of animal organization, wherein they become thoroughly imbued with these imaginative sentiments, which, in a refined form they are to carry on with them throughout their im- mortality.* Not to multiply distinctions, or refine too much, we * Does this conjecture receive support from the apostolic doc- trine " There are bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial there is a natural body and a spiritual body HowbeiU/taf is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual." This order, or regular process, this transition, is it the universal law of the intelligent creation ? OF ANOTHER LIFE may class under this same head, those various modifica- tions of the moral sentiments, both in the way of abate- ment and of enhancement, which arise from our corpo- real sympathies and animal desires. Neither love nor anger, nor the sense of justice, nor the emotion of pity, neither shame, remorse, hatred, amity, ambition, humil- ity, hope, or fear, is what it would have been if there were no concomitant organic sensations. These emo- tions of the moral nature, and especially when they form habits or dispositions, and constitute individual charac- ter, are unquestionably modified, to a very great extent, by the peculiarities of the physical temperament ; and hence arise various modes of feeling, of a complex kind, which must be traced to the body as their source. Now even if these physical modifications of the moral nature might be dropped with the dissolution of the animal frame, so that the moral sentiments should return to an abso- lutely simple state, it is not certain that we should be gainers by the change : on the contrary, it is easy to im- agine that a new power and intensity, a vividness and a spring shall be imparted to the moral principles from their sympathy with the organic energies of the spiritual body. At present we are conscious of the fact that ac- tivity and force are infused into the moral sentiments, even the most exalted of them, by their alliance with ani- mal sensations ; it is so with the domestic affections, and with general benevolence, and pity, courage, and ambi- tion : the rule of analogy therefore leads us to suppose that similar effects will follow from a similar combina- tion, in the future construction of human nature. Once more, and in the sixth place, the corporeal alli- ance of mind and matter is, in the present state, and, as 40 PHYSICAL THEORY we may strongly conjecture, it will be, the means of so defining our individuality in relation to others, as to bring minds under the conditions of a social economy. The purposes of such a system demand, in the first place, what may be called the seclusion or the insulation of each spirit, or its impenetrability by other spirits. Com- munication and exchange of thought must, under any plan of free agency, be voluntary ; there must rest with each member of the community a power of reserve; and then the means of communication being arbitrary, must be absolutely under the command of the individual. Now the body is not the open bower or tent of the soul, into which any one may walk at pleasure ; but it is its castle, from which all other minds may be excluded. Perhaps unembodied spirits (if such there be) may lie open to inspection, or be liable to invasion, like an unfenced field, or a plot of common land. But although such a state of exposure might involve no harm to beings absolutely good, or absolutely evil, we cannot imagine it to consist with the safety or dignity of beings like man ; or indeed to be proper to a mixed economy. But further; a social system demands the means of immediate recognition individually ; and this, in the pre- sent state, is provided for by the endless, yet distinct pe- culiarities of bodily conformation, and by that law of the animal organization which gives to each peculiarity of the mind, and temper, and temperament, a character- istic exterior expression. It must not be positively af- firmed that these purposes could not, in the nature of things, be secured without the aid of a corporeal struc- ture ; yet there is some reason to question whether sheer spirits could (except by immediate acts of the Divine pow- er) be individually dealt with, and governed, could be OF ANOTHER LIFE 41 known, and employed, could be followed and detained, could form lasting associations, and be moulded into hie- rarchies and polities, could sustain office, and yield obedi- ence, in any certain manner, if at all. At least it is true that all these functions and social ends are now in fact dependent upon corporeity ; and it is only fair to assume that they demand a bodily structure in every case where minds are to live and act in concert with others. The supposition has already been advanced* that the definite or productive agency of finite natures demands that Mind be compacted, or bound down to those condi- tions of limitation which attach to matter, and which mind undergoes in becoming allied to matter. Now the same principle, if it be good, must imply, and even more clearly, this same limitation of minds, as the condition of their being definitely related one to another, and of their acting one upon another, and one with another. We imagine that by the medium of corporeity the mind is defined, and its powers rendered applicable to definite purposes. In thus naming what appear to be the common condi- tions or prerogatives of corporeal existence, whether natu- ral or spiritual, we of course do not include any adjunct of the present life which makes part of our animal organ- ization merely, and which may readily be conceived of as dropped along with the perishable body. After setting off all such temporary faculties of the body, and which are subservient only to the well being of the animal struc- ture itself, to its preservation, or to its reproduction, we reach those properties or consequences of the corpo- real constitution which are directly subservient to the mind, and which therefore may, on good grounds, be * Pa 6 28. 42 PHYSICAL THEORY regarded as belonging to corporeity, abstractedly, and as likely to attach to the future spiritual body. Such, mani- festly, are the occupation of place, or a relationship to space and extension the consciousness of equable mo- tion, or a knowledge of time the consciousness of the properties of matter, or sensation an active power over matter, to originate motion the susceptibility of ima- ginative emotions, and of mixed moral sentiments and a defined recognizable individuality. Besides these properties or consequences of the cor- poreal union of mind and matter, as above described, others of a more abstruse kind, might be named which affect the processes of reasoning ; but it may be better to confine ourselves, at present, to what is the most simple and indisputable, and especially as fit opportunities will arise, in pursuing our inquiry, for adverting to some of these more intricate subjects. In truth a strict analysis of our mental operations would hardly leave one free from a reasonable supposition of being extensively modified by the interaction of mind and body, or of being what it is in consequence of the dependence of the mind upon the organization and functions of the brain. It is so with the memory, with the association of ideas, with the power of attention, with the processes of comparison, calculation and reasoning, and with the inventive faculty, and the perception of analogies. Having thus inquired what it is which ought to be attri- buted in common to the animal and to the spiritual body, and which must belong as well to the future as to the present lodgment of the human mind, we are next to ask (on the ground of physical probability) what it is wherein the difference between the one and the other will consist ; or in other words, what are likely to be the prerogatives OF ANOTHER LIFE. 43 of the latter, as compared with the former ; or in what manner the actual powers of the present structure of hu- man nature may be conceived of as expanded or advan- taged, consistently with those great principles of analogy which we find to characterize the Divine operations in all their departments. 44 PHYSICAL THEORY CHAPTER III. THE PROBABLE PREROGATIVES OF SPIRITUAL CORPO- REITY, AS COMPARED WITH ANIMAL ORGANIZATION : THE FIRST OF THOSE PREROpATIVES. IN now approaching the hypothetical part of our sub- ject, we must again remind the reader of the important distinction between the mere creations of the imagina- tion, and the legitimate results of analysis and abstrac- tion. It is not the imagination that can render us aid in conceiving of a new and different mode of existence, since it is but the mirror of the world around it, and draws all its materials from things actually known. It may exalt, refine, ennoble, enrich, what it finds ; and may shed over all the splendour of an effulgence such as earth never sees ; yet it must end where it began, in compounding elements, and in recombining forms furnished to its hand ; and if ever it goes, or seems to go, beyond these mate- rials, the product is grotesque or absurd, not beautiful : there is no symmetry in that which trenches upon the actual forms of nature. But the faculty of analysis may boldly and safely outstep the imagination ; and may, by a careful examination of the constituents of human na- ture, considered in their abstract value, be able, in ac- cordance with sound principles of analogy, to point out other modes of construction, such as, while they imply only small actual changes of form, involve high preroga- tives. In some of these instances it may not be difficult OFANOTHERLIFE. 45 to assign a reason why such prerogatives should not have been granted to man, in his present condition ; and yet it may be equally easy, or nearly so, to show that they are abstractedly possible, and that they are compatible one with another, and that they comport with the probable purposes of a higher range of intellectual and moral life. And be it always remembered, that although hypothe- sis is not truth, or we should rather say, is not truth ascertained, yet, when legitimately used, it is the most ready and effective of all the means in our power for ac- quiring truth. It is by hypothesis, framed with at once a bold and a cautious sagacity, that the boundaries of science are extended : and it is in the use of this method that facts and principles which once seemed to be placed far beyond the reach of human intelligence have at length been brought to form a part of our well-established mo- dern philosophy. At the least, or where nothing can be done beyond the mere statement of a rational and con- sistent theory, this, while carefully kept apart from mat- ters of certainty and faith, may serve the important pur- poses, first, of superseding a multitude of difficulties, themselves drawn from hypothetical sources ; and se- condly, of affording a provisional aid to meditative minds, in loosening from things sensual and temporary, and in bringing vividly home to their convictions the bright ex- pectation of a future and undecaying felicity. Nothing could be more manifestly absurd than the supposition that any efforts of the mind, how strenuous soever, can enable it to conceive, even in the faintest manner, of a mode of existence essentially and totally unlike our actual mode of life ; for this were to imagine ourselves endowed with a real creative faculty. But the task we now undertake, although arduous, is alto- 5 46 PHYSICALTHEORY gether of another sort ; inasmuch as it is proposed to specify the conditions of a mode of existence, differing from the present as little as may 6e, and yet in a manner that shall secure the highest advantages. On a line of conjecture like this, sobriety may be mistress of our course, nor need we set a single step, without a suffi- cient reason for the direction we take. That the prin- ciple of analogy will hold good, in connecting the pre- sent with the future constitution of human nature is a persuasion which, while the material universe is before us, it is scarcely possible to resist ; and that such an analogy will actually run on from the present to the fu- ture, the language of scripture plainly implies. But if so, then it cannot be thought a hopeless task to trace the rudiments at least of the future, amid the elements of the present life. Our part then is to examine in succession the several constituents of our corporeal existence, and to consider of what extensions each faculty may be sus- ceptible, or how it might be set at large from the limita- tions that actually confine it. We take perhaps the most accessible path on this field of hypothesis by considering, in the first place, the least intellectual of the faculties of the mind namely, its power to originate motion. Now this power, mys- terious as it is, may be conceived of as applied in a dif- ferent manner, and so as to involve a great and desira- ble extension of our range of corporeal activity and en- joyment. It was an ancient opinion, to which modern philosophy also inclines that motion, in every case, is the product of mind, and that though transmitted and continued through various means, it never commences except in a volition, either of the Supreme Mind, or of OF ANOTHER LIFE. 47 created minds. This doctrine may well have been sug- gested by our consciousness, with which it exactly com- ports. The mere volition is followed by muscular action, and the process is absolutely simple and instantaneous ; nor does any thought of the physical apparatus the muscular contractions, the tendinous attachments, or the bony fulcra, enter into the mental operation. In fact there is no process at all ; there is no circuit of acts or preparations : motion follows will, just as perception follows the impact of vibrations without interval : will and motion are immediately conjoined, and the organic and mechanical structure by which it is effected are modes only through which the power of the mind is de- fined, and is directed in a particular line of movement. The vis inertice of matter, the tendency of gravitation, and the resistance of the atmosphere, are all met and in- stantaneously overcome by a direct mechanical force a force which is not that of bones, tendons, and muscu- lar fibres ; but, the force of mind. Bones, tendons, nerves, and muscles, do in fact come between mind and matter ; but it is as instruments only, and as a staff or a chord intervenes between the hand and the body that is moved by it. The expansive force of heat, as applied in the vaporization of water, is not a more direct mechan- ical force than is the impulsive power of the mind in man and other locomotive animals. We are accustom- ed indeed to say that the mind acts mechanically, only by exciting muscular irritability, and the tension of fibres. But is not this assumption altogether gratuitous 1 Our consciousness does not suggest any such belief: in rapidly and forcibly moving the hand in striking a blow, we know nothing of contractile fibres, or of muscles, or of a circuitous despatching of orders from the mind to 48 PHYSICAL THEORY the brain, and from the brain along the nervous chords to such and such muscles, as the case may demand. The mind is in the hand, and there it originates the mo- tion ; it is not, or not if our consciousness speak true, in the anatomical or physiological mechanism. This com- plex apparatus performs its part, at the moment when called upon, with as little of our control or interference as do the heart, and the intestines, and the liver, perform their constant offices. JSTor is the mechanical power of the mind of a slender or evanescent sort, like certain barely perceptible galva- nic or magnetic influences, which, although they may just be detected in a nicely conducted and elaborate ex- periment, elude common observation, and are incapable of being so far enhanced as to propel the smallest solid mass. The mind impels matter with the celerity of lightning, and with a force that is bounded, as it seems, only by the adhesive strength of the engine it employs ; that is to say, by the solidity of the bones, the tenacity of the ligatures, and tendons, and by the degree in which the irritability of the fleshy substance may be wrought upon. That the inherent power of the mind is in fact limited by the strength of the materials it employs (just as the expansive force of steam is limited by the strength of copper and iron) becomes evident in those instances in which, from want of a due caution, it actually breaks up or rends its own animal machinery. Acting through the medium of a lever of that sort in which velocity is gained at the cost of power, it yet puts in motion masses greater in bulk and heavier than the animal frame ; and were the whole muscular energy of a robust man to be applied in one direction, and through the means of a lever of the first order, it would be sufficient to crush or to OFANOTHERLIFE. 49 burst far stronger materials than those which compose the animal body. An habitual and unconscious discre- tion is, in truth, acquired early in life, which checks our muscular efforts, and leads us to refrain from the full exertion of the power we might exert, lest injury should be done to the vascular system, or to the tendons, or to the ligatures and fascia. A man in full health is capable of far greater efforts than he ordinarily permits himself to make ; and when this habitual restraint is thrown aside, as in cases of sud- den peril, or of delirium and madness, the inherent me- chanical force of mind is displayed, and it is seen that one lunatic or one desperate man exerts a power with which five or six in their ordinary senses can hardly cope. This same force, otherwise applied, would be enough, and much more than enough to overcome the vis inertias and the gravitation of the body, and to impart to it a velocity greater than that of the swiftest of birds. Furthermore, in the animal structure the force of the mind is limitted, not only in its amount by the strength of the organic materials, but in its direction also by the sys- tem of articulation, and by the specific arrangement of the muscles. A door, however impelled, can only re- volve on its hinges : the piston can play perpendicularly only ; and the limbs have their appointed movement prone or supine, lateral or rotatory, and always in con- formity with a definite mechanism. One part of this mechanism consists of the nervous communication be- tween the limb and the brain. Sever or tie the nervous chord, and the muscles no longer receive from the cerebral mass or spinal process that pabulum of irritability which they require : the mind, in that case, does not take effect 50 PHYSICAL THEORY upon the limb. It may be said indeed that the nervous chord is the channel not of muscular excitement, but of volition, which, taking place in the brain, is supposed to run along the thread, conveying itself duly to this, that, and the other muscles, to flectors, pronators, supinators, &c. as is needed to perform the intended movement. But how is any such gratuitous supposition proved, or even made to appear probable ? All we are conscious of is the volition; and all we learn from physiology is, that muscular contraction requires a certain galvanic influence, of which influence the brain appears to be the secreting viscus, and the nerves, the channel. The hand cannot follow the mind unless constantly supplied with blood by the heart, and with galvanic excitement by the brain ; nor can the stomach digest food unless in the same manner it be supplied with both, from the heart, and from the brain : but it is not the heart that digests the food, nor is it the brain that digests it ; but the living power, with its solvents, in the coats of the stomach ; and thus, as we suppose, it is not the brain that moves the hand, in any other sense than that in which it may be said that the heart does so, although the functions of both are indispensable to motion ; but it is the mind, pre- sent in the hand and arm, that is the actual power. But the inference we have in view, in connexion with our immediate subject, is not dependent upon the hypo- thesis we may adopt concerning the occult process of muscular movement ; for whether we suppose, as the au- thor is inclined to do, that the mind impels the limb im- mediately, and that the influence derived from the brain, through the nervous chord, is subsidiary only ; or whe- ther we think that volition, affecting the brain immedi- ately, is thence conveyed to the muscles, it will still be OF ANOTHER true that mind puts matter in movement ; last named supposition the influence must be considered as chemical ; whereas, on the former supposition, it is simply mechanical. In the one case, as well as the other, inert matter is put into vehement action, and it is quite as easy to conceive of the one species of movement, as of the other, as originated by mind. We are then free to adopt the hypothesis, which seems the simpler of the two, namely, that animal mo- tion springs immediately from the inherent mechanical power of the mind over matter, which it impels at will, hither and thither, with a volecity like that of light, and with a force that, so far as we know, is limitted only by the tenacity of the tendinous chords, and by the strength of the coats of the vessels. But in like manner as sensation is confined, in the ani- mal organization, to particular points, or to surfaces of nervous excitability ; so is the mechanical force of the mind restricted to those flexions and rotations which the joints will admit of, and which the muscles may perform. Nothing more therefore can be done by a machinery such as this, but change the relative position of the limbs, and so, by throwing the centre of gravity forward or backward, on this side, or on that, to effect locomotion. The flight of birds, the swimming of fishes, and the walk- ing, running, and leaping of land animals are mere adapt- ations of an altered relative position of the limbs, taking effect suddenly and forcibly upon resisting bodies. Let it however be supposed that muscular action takes place in the circuitous mode of chemical excitement, which we have stated ; and in this case it is easy to con- ceive of the very same power (nor need it be greater) 52 PHYSICAL THEORY acting upon, or through the medium of, a corporeal structure absolutely infrangible, and indestructible ; and it would then suffice for effecting locomotion by impul- sion upon a resisting medium in a manner analogous to the flight of birds, but greatly surpassing it in velocity. This supposition, though easily admitted, we should not entertain ; but should prefer the hypothesis that, in the future spiritual body, whether or not the mechanical apparatus shall be altogether superseded, the entire cor- poreal mass shall be liable to a plenary mental influence, equably diffused, and although still subject to the vis in- ertias and gravitation that are proper to matter, both shall be overcome, at will, by the embodied mind, so that the locomotion of the whole shall follow volition, as now the relative motion of the lips follows it. This we consider to imply nothing more than the setting the inherent me- chanical power of the mind at large, and the breaking up its restriction to the muscular structure and the osseous articulations. A body thus informed throughout, by the energy of mind, might be either subtile and ethereal, like the magnetic fluid ; or it might be as dense and ponder- ous as gold, or as adamant ; for the most elastic gas is in itself not at all more self-motive than a block of gran- ite ; and it is a mere illusion to imagine that the one might more readily be affected by the volitions of mind than the other. The seraph who steers his course at pleasure from sun to sun, and who overtakes the swift- est of the planets in its orbit, may corporeally possess an invisible and imponderable ether, or (which is equally credible) he may command a gigantic body, solid as por- phyry. The two suppositions stand on the same ground of abstract probability ; for matter, in relation to rnind, is one and the same, and always inert and passive. OF ANOTHER LIFE. 53 The first article then of our hypothesis concerning the future spiritual body involves nothing more than an extension of a power now actually exerted by the mind, and which is easily conceived of as set free from its mus- cular restrictions, in such a manner as should allow of locomotion by simple volition, as well as of the power to put external masses in movement. Nevertheless, in- asmuch as a corporeal structure must involve the limita- tions that attach necessarily to matter, it may well be supposed that this locomotive faculty, how wide soever its range, will yet be a force related to other forces, and counterpoised by a definite resistance it will have its calculable velocity, and its limit which it will not pass. A fit occasion will present itself in the following pages, for adverting to the probable uses and consequences of this enlarged power of locomotion ; but that it actually awaits human nature might be plausibly inferred on the ground that the muscular force is now felt to be a power restrained ; a faculty equal to much more than is as yet permitted to it : and perhaps, with not a few indi- viduals, the conscious mechanical energy is strictly an- alogous to that of a strong man fettered and handcuffed, who meditates what he will do when set at large. Is there not a latent, or a half latent instinct in the mind which speaks of a future liberty of ranging at will through space ? There are some, perhaps, who will ad- mit that they have indistinct anticipations of this sort, quite as strong as are those moral and intellectual aspi- rations after immortality which have been considered good presumptive proofs of the reality of a future life.* * The author would be very slow to seek support to an argu- ment, such as the one now in hand, from scriptural expressions 54 PHYSICAL THEORY which, probably, ought to be interpreted in a spiritual sense only ; he will therefore merely name the often quoted passage (Isaiah xl. 21,) as possibly having a secondary reference to the future cor- poreal powers of the sons of God, "They shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as eagles they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." OF ANOTHER LIFE. 55 CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND AND THIRD SUPPOSED PREROGATIVES OF THE SPIRITUAL ECONOMY. THUS far our hypothesis trenches very little upon the ground of mere conjecture, and it would be easy to go on in the same direction, imagining the mind, in its new corporeal lodgement, to gain a power over some other of the properties of matter, beside the vis inertice and grav- itation ; and that it may be able to put in activity certain chemical affinities. Of this supposed influence we find what is very nearly an actual instance, or at the least, an indication, in the chemical assimilations, and the se- creting functions, which belong to animal life, and which, if not immediately effected by an unconscious mental agency, are unquestionably to a great extent under the indirect influence of the mind, acting upon them in the way both of acceleration and abatement. Animal life, in its various functions, that mysterious energy which we name, but can never define, and never expose to view, may perhaps consist in the power of mind over such of the properties of matter as may be made available for the special purposes of animal organization. Mind, incor- porate, unconsciously indeed, but as directed by the cre- ative energy, combines or dissolves, takes up or rejects, the elements with which it comes in contact, and thus lives, if we might so speak, by its own discretive act. Now this same power over the chemical affinities of 56 PHYSICAL THEORY matter, may, like the power of the mind over masses of matter, be enlarged in another state. But we leave this conjecture and pass on. Nothing however can be more natural than the sup- position that the passivity of the mind, or its conscious- ness of some of the properties of matter through the senses, shall in the future corporeal frame, be made to include other of those properties. The mind, as we have already observed, is no doubt inherently percipient of light, heat, sound, solidity, and the several properties that affect the olfactory and gustatory organs; for if it were not so, there is little reason to believe that any or- ganic apparatus, any expansion of nervous filaments, could endure it with this faculty. On the same ground we assume the mind to possess an inherent or essential mechanical force; yet a force that can be exerted only through the instrumentality of a corporeal structure. But as the several species of perception are rendered distinct, and are adapted to the special purposes of animal and rational life by being separately attached each to its or- gan of sensation, each of these contrivances, admirable as it is, must be regarded as a limitation of the general percipient faculty of the mind, and as restricting it, as well in regard to the extent and the delicacy of its per- ceptions, as to the variety or kinds of them. The organs of sense are so many adjustments of nervous sensibility, intended to concentrate the mind, at different times, upon single properties of the external world, with a view to the better securing of particular purposes. The senses are adits of knowledge ; and because adits, therefore exclusive and restrictive means of information. It is upon the retina, and there only, that the mind converses OF ANOTHER LIFE. 57 with light and colours : it is with the tympanum, and there only, that the mind converses with the modulated vibrations of the air : it is upon the tongue that it dis- criminates certain chemical differences of the substan- ces to be taken into the stomach. But we cannot sup- pose that, abstractedly, these several properties could not affect the mind in any other mode, or at any other points. Doubtless it might bring its percipient faculty into contact with these properties of matter more at large and under fewer limitations ; and might also gain acquaintance with other properties than those to which the five organs of sensation extend. The medullary substance we may easily suppose to be laid open to sen- sation otherwise than it actually is, and also to be endu- ed with a more exquisite or refined sensibility. The discrimination of colours, through the touch, by the blind, and the many instances that have occurred in which the want of one or more of the senses has been compensa- ted by an enhanced sensibility of the remaining organs, afford proof enough, or as we should perhaps say, give indication, of what may be called the versatility of the percipient faculty, and establish the fact that this power is inherently much greater than, under ordinary circum- stances, it seems to be. The animal organization, with its medullary mass and nervous expansions, may be regarded, not merely as a means of sensation, but as a means of abatement, or as a sheath, defending the percipient faculty of the mind, except at certain points, from the too forcible impres- sions of the external world. The body, as we suppose, is to the mind an envelope, or a rough coating which serves to prevent its being either overborne, or unduly stimulated by the otherwise continuous influx of various 6 58 PHYSICAL THEORY and powerful excitements. The mind perhaps, in this its present initial stage of existence, might scarcely be able to assert its rational supremacy, or to exercise its proper, intellectual, and moral functions, if it were ex- posed to as much sensation as it is inherently capable of receiving. But in its next stage of life, and when its ac- tive and higher principles have become mature, it may be well able to sustain, and advantageously to use, a much more ample correspondence with the material world than would now be good or possible. The boldest supposition we can entertain, on this sub- ject, ought not to be regarded as unphilosophical or ex- travagant, while we have proof before us of those vast extensions of our means of knowledge that have accrued from the improvement of the merely mechanical aids of the senses. Let the well known facts be simply stated and duly considered. The nearest of the fixed stars is at a greater distance from our system than 19,200,000,- 000,000 miles, and the most remote of those that are dis- tinctly visible by the telescope, are probably twice that distance, or much more. Nevertheless the transmission of light through that incalculable space is exact and pre- cise ; and when, by the means of the refracting power of some few lenses, the remote object is made to subtend a larger angle than it does to the naked eye, then the eye with ease converses with that object, and perceives that what seemed one, is actually two stars, and that these two revolve around a common centre of gravity ; and moreover, that the curve they move in is not a circle, but an ellipse. This, we must say, infinitely small differ- ence between one kind of orbit and another, has actually become perceptible to the human eye. It is manifest therefore that, as well the materials of knowledge as the OF ANOTHER LIFE. 59 faculty of knowing, are immensely more extensive than, to the unassisted senses, they appear. Now it cannot be deemed extravagant to suppose that instead of the aid furnished to the eye by the telescope, the percipient faculty might be so exposed to the emanations of light as to be able to distinguish at once, what it now does dis- tinguish by the aid of refraction. And if it might do this, who shall say it might not do still more 1 Is it philoso- phical to place a limit to the range of perception? we think not ; and on the contrary, regard it as altogether a probable supposition, that the same mind, which now dis- cerns spheres, and distinguishes their motions at a dis- tance incalculably remote, may hereafter be so advan- taged, in its organic structure, as to discern bodies, and persons, and their movements, on the surfaces of the planets of our system, near as they are to us compara- tively. If this be a wild hypothesis, it is an hypothesis like that which assumes that the infant who now crosses the nursery, may in time, and by the use of the very same locomotive powers, perambulate the globe. The actual discoveries of modern science are such as to render every thing credible which can be proved to come within the compass of abstract analogies. Whatever is true, or may be made to appear probable, in relation to vision, may be assumed, mutatis mutandis, in relation to the other senses ; and it is not needful here to insist upon the particulars. Our principle is That Perception is, at present, a circumscribed faculty ; and we confidently anticipate an era when it shall throw off its confinements, and converse at large with the material universe, and find itself familiarly at home in the height and breadth of the heavens. The five senses, we have said, may be regarded as PHYSICAL THEORY limitting the percipient faculty, not merely as to the amount or extent of the impressions we receive, but in regard also to the kinds of sensation which the mind may be inherently capable of admitting. By the means of these senses we become acquainted with some few of the pro- perties of matter; but it is only a few, and the intimate researches of our modern physical science leave no room to doubt that there are many agencies in activity about us, which, although they make themselves known in their ultimate consequences, are not directly cognizable either by the eye, the ear, the touch, the taste, or the smell. The external world, as at present perceptible to man, in five species, may, to other sentient natures be percepti- ble in twenty, or in fifty kinds. If the mind may know the difference of hot and cold, hard and soft, loud or harsh and melodious, red and yellow, sweet and bitter ; it may discriminate other differences, or qualities that belong to matter, or every other such quality. In truth it is more easy to conceive of the mind as conversant with all pro- perties of the external world, than as conversant with some, while it is insensible of others. Mind, as we have said, must be natively conscious of the vibratory, ema- native, and pungent powers of the external world ; but if so, then we may assume that it only needs to be freed from the husk of animal organization, to know on all sides and perfectly, that which now it knows at points only, and in an abated degree. The ancient philosophy supposed there to be four elements, or perhaps a fifth ; but we now reckon fifty ; in like manner, as now we think of five species of perception, hereafter we may become familiar with a hundred, or a thousand. Yet this is not all that may fairly be assumed as proba- OF ANOTHER LIFE. 61 ble, and as analogous to our present powers mere con- jecture not admitted. The senses, such as they are under the present animal organization, in no instance go further than to give us information concerning the last product of certain combined qualities or conditions of matter. Thus for example, we perceive colours, but we know nothing (by the sense of sight) of that state of the sur- faces of bodies, the effect of which is that they imbibe some of the elements of light, and throw off others : the petals of the poppy imbibe and assimilate the yellow and the blue, and with a most decisive antipathy reject the fierce red of the sun's rays ; while again the gentle violet cherishes the more powerful element of light, and refuses the pale and feeble. So do the chemical quali- ties of substances affect the tongue and palate, and the membranes of the nose, with a certain product of their combination ; but this combination itself, and its ingredi- ents, and the reason of its affinity, remain occult. But it is conceivable that this INNER FORM of matter, as it has been termed, may, as well as the external species, be perceptible, so that the specific cause of solidity, fluid- ity, crystallization, decomposition, colour, taste, smell, musical relation, and other states, movements, and tran- sitions of matter, may be as immediately perceptible as are now the ulterior products of those states. Thus, besides knowing Effects, we should also know Causes ; or to speak more correctly, should be able to trace forms and affinities, a stage or two higher than now we can. Instead of looking only at the dial plate of nature, and of noting the hands and the figures, we should be admitted to inspect the wheel-work and the springs ; and this inner perception of real forms might well consist with the simul- taneous perception of external species ; just as our dis- 6* 62 PHYSICAL THEORY section of an animal does not prevent or supersede our discernment of its form. The material universe (and the same, with still more meaning, may be said of the intellectual universe) is a vast profound, upon the surface of which we float, and of which, by direct consciousness, we know nothing beyond the surface. Science, with its methods of inference, carries us a little way beneath the forms and semblances of things, and only a little. Meantime we cannot suppose the in- terior to be, from any abstract necessity, incognizable by the human mind. Our knowledge of nature is like our acquaintance with the globe we inhabit, superficial only ; and the operations of the miner, like those of the natural philosopher, expose to our view a few fathoms of the depth, but yet leave the abyss unexplored. Neverthe- less it is assuredly possible, abstractedly, that the very bowels of our planet should be inspected by the human eye. And so we may assume, concerning the inmost recesses of the mechanism of the material world, and they might be known by man. Nor need any jealousy be entertained, as if this expo- sure of the secrets of nature should tend to abate our reverence towards our Creator, or breed in the human mind a presumptuous familiarity with the divine opera- tions. It may indeed be well, and even necessary, while in the present world, where the Creator himself is veiled from our sight, that an impenetrable veil of mystery should be thrown over the procedures of his power and wisdom ; and that so a check should be given to the audacity of reason, and an awe and modesty imposed upon minds ready enough to build a tower of pride that shall reach to heaven. In the path of any such intellectual arro- OF ANOTHER LIFE. 63 gance, we meet an impassable obstacle, resulting from the secrecy that attaches to the processes and the con- struction of the material world, a secrecy such as no means of analysis, how exact and assiduous soever, can break through. Our ambition and self-esteem receive here an effectual rebuff. But it may, and probably will be otherwise, when we reach a more advanced stage of our existence, and come where the far more stupendous mysteries of the divine nature, and of the spiritual uni- verse, shall begin to unfold themselves to our view. Then it will be found that the lower, and comparatively unimportant wonders of the material world, may be looked at with a familiar intuition, and this first page of our schooling, which now concentrates all our faculties, being fully understood, shall leave us at leisure to learn a higher lesson. We ought assuredly to believe that He who has en- dowed his rational family with powers fitting them to comprehend the reason of his works, and with a dispo- sition to admire what they understand, will not in the end hide from them any thing which they might know with safety and advantage ; and that gradually, as one special and temporary motive of concealment after another is superseded, the veil will be drawn aside, so that what once was inscrutable shall be openly displayed. These progressive revelations, instead of inflating intellectual vanity, must tend rather to inspire an ever-growing awe of the inexhaustible wealth of the INFINITE INTELLI- GENCE ; inasmuch as every such new discovery shall be attended with a new and glimmering perception of things heretofore not imagined to exist, or so much as whispered of among even the best informed of the elders of im- mortality. PHYSICAL THEORY CHAPTER V. THE FOURTH OF THESE ADVANTAGES. THE above named probable extensions of the physical powers, in the future spiritual body, have relation to the correspondence of the mind with the external world ; and some other like advantages, less clearly supported by analogy, might be added ; but passing any such con- jectures, we go on to consider those expansions or new adjustments of the corporeal structure, the effect of which would be to confer advantage upon the mind itself, in relation to the exercise of its intellectual and moral faculties. It can hardly be necessary, as a preliminary to this portion of our hypothesis, to prove that all the faculties of the mind, even the loftiest of them, as well as the very purest of the emotions, are, in their present corpo- real lodgement, subject to much modification, and abate- ment, and limitation, in consequence of the dependence of the mind upon the animal organization. In every mental process, and in every movement of the affections, there is an attendant organic action a subsidiary opera- tion of the medullary mass, and of the arterial system, not to say of the other vital organs ; and inasmuch as this accompaniment is necessarily clogged with the con- ditions that attach to inert matter, the mind is so far bound down to those conditions, and is restrained from moving at any other rate than that at which the body can safely follow, and duly perform its part. Reason OFANOTHERLIFE. 65 (in man) is not reason absolute, but a reasoning faculty dependent, to a great extent, upon, and characterized by the particular cerebral conformation, and by the con- stitution or temperament of the individual. The same manifestly is true of the purest and most elevated of the moral sentiments. Among these intellectual powers, intimately affected by the original structure, and by the pathology of the body in each individual, the memory stands foremost. The memory is, in a peculiar sense, a function of the brain ; and as in the admission of images of the external world, every thing depends upon the sensorium, so like- wise in the retention and the reproduction of these ideas, the physical structure, and the actual condition, or healthy action of the cerebral organ, determine its power and its activity. The memory grows with the growth of the body, strengthens with adolescence, is the contemporary of animal energy ; and is the first of the mental powers to betray the incipient decay of the vital force : the gray head, the impaired sight, the trembling limb, and the faithless memory, tell of the advance of years, even while reason, and perhaps imagination, scarcely seem to de- cline. Again, it is the memory that is the most directly affected by external injuries of the head, or by those diseases that spend their violence upon the brain. It is the memory, moreover, that asks for and admits of those artificial aids which bespeaks its intimate alliance with corporeal impression. Thus it is that any very peculiar physical sensation, recurring after a long interval, brings to our recollection the incidental circumstances and the mental state, at the time of its first occurrence. In- stances of this sort are various, and have often been adduced, nor can it be necessary here to relate them. 66 PHYSICAL THEORY It is therefore obvious that this organic mental faculty, as at present possessed even by the most highly favoured individuals, is susceptible of vast enhancement and ex- tension, merely by an enlargement or improvement of the corporeal constitution. In this there is nothing conjectural. But it may be well to consider what is probably implied in such an augmentation of the memory. Let it then be kept in view that, as sensation, in its several kinds, or the consciousness we have of the ex- ternal world, is a specific adaptation of the inherent power of the mind to perceive the properties of matter, so is the memory a particular adaptation of that original and essential faculty of the mind by which it retains a consciousness of its past states, and knows them to be past, and to have been real, and clearly distinguishes them from simple cogitations. Sensation has respect to the particular uses and purposes of the present animal and intellectual life ; and so likewise the faculty of memory, as now enjoyed, has respect to the special purposes of our present condition : so much of it is granted to us as we actually need, but not more ; or at least by no means all that is abstractedly possible. As sensationis a limittedconsciousness of the external world, so is memory a limitted and incidental recollection of our past states of feeling ; it is a partial exercise of a larger power, which, in adapting itself to the occasions of active life, forfeits, or holds in abeyance, its plenary preroga- tives. Considered as a function of the brain, the memory retains what it retains, and reproduces what it reproduces, according to the law of an arbitrary, and often accidental connexion of ideas. The power which in its original capacity might fill a broad field, does in fact only beat a narrow path, and gropes its way backward over the OFANOTHERLIFE. 67 ground it has traversed, in search of what it has dropped. Or, to change our comparison, the memory is a book, the blank leaves of which are constantly filling, but of which the written portion never lies outspread before us ; and, moreover, the paper is of frail texture, and the ink evanescent, and the entries are often made in such haste, or so carelessly, that they soon become totally illegible. The memory furnishes a partial and fortuitous sample of facts; but it by no means (not even in the most eminent instances) exhibits a complete collection of whatever it has received. Yet with all its incompleteness and its frailties the memory serves sufficiently the ordinary purposes of life, active, intellectual, and moral ; nor is it very difficult to imagine the reasons which may make even these dis- paragements a proper part of our condition in the present state. Perhaps if our impressions of the past were not in some such manner abated, and borne down, or ob- scured and obliterated, there would in most minds be certain vivid recollections which would continue to usurp the entire consciousness, and so exclude the present, with its fainter sensations, its interests and duties ; and we might thus be liable to long seasons of abstraction, during which we should stand like statues amid the urgent affairs of the passing moment. Such, in fact, is the misfortune of a class of morbid minds. But this necessity for abating the vividness of the memory is temporary only ; and it is easy to imagine such an en- hancement of the active force of the mind, in relation to the passing moment, as should fully counterpoise the influence of even the most distinct and vivid recollection of scenes gone by. Let but the voluntary principle be proportionately invigorated, and then the mind might 68 PHYS1CALTHEORY enjoy a full, permanent, and bright consciousness of all that it has ever known, felt, and performed : it might repossess itself of its entire past existence, and might thus continue to enjoy (or to endure) an evergrowing and plenary recollection of its various successive states : it might every moment live its whole life over simultane- ously, and with an infallible accuracy might be conscious of all the circumstances and shades of every portion of its being. However much such a full consciousness of the past might seem to exceed, in kind as well as in amount, our present partial and fallacious recollections, it would nevertheless be only the same power of the mind, set free from physical obstructions and infirmities. The memory, even in its present state, and affected as it is by the conditions of animal life, might be brought near to the perfection we have supposed (and in a few recorded instances it has been) if it were absolutely ex- empted from the accidental obstructions arising from a turgid state of the cerebral vessels a flaccid state of the cerebral substance a slight compression a con- fusion connected with derangement of the digestive or- gans, and the like. The spiritual body then, in itself indestructible and exempt from the liability to animal de- cay, may allow the mental faculty to spread itself out to the full ; or as if an inscription, which heretofore had been committed to a leaf, or papyrian scroll, was now transferred to a fair and ample surface of Parian marble. Memory, we say, is a corporeal-mental power, and it is so, not only as physiologically dependent upon the state of the cerebral mass, but also in a higher and more intellectual sense, which should not be lost sight of in relation to our present argument. Mind, absolutely un- OF AN OTHER LIFE. 69 embodied, and cut off from all connexion with the mate- rial universe, would not (as we have conjectured) retain the .power of noting the epochs of its existence, or the equal periods of duration. In such an insulated condi- tion, it is probable, that the entire consciousness, com- prising as well the acts of the mind, as its passive states, and its emotions, instead of constituting a continuous history, or a series of changes, the one coming on as the other recedes, would assume the appearance of a va- rious aggregate of abstractions, or as if simultaneously existing, and would be associated with no idea of the past and the present ; nor be attended with an anticipa- tion of the future. Whether such a condition of being could consist at all with the exercise of active faculties is not clear ; but it is hard to think that it would comport with that progressive developement of principles and of character which belong to the moral life. The moral life is, in a peculiar sense A HISTORY : it is a process, involving successive stages, through the course of which the unalterable laws of the spiritual economy are in turn brought to bear upon the dispositions and conduct of those who are subject thereto. Take away memory, and we annul government, and destroy accountability. Now it is as embodied, and as thereby conversant with material objects, that the mind learns to arrange its consciousness in a series, or in other words, exercises memory. For this faculty, although not exclusively con- versant with material objects, yet rarely, if ever enter- tains any notions, as constituting part of our past history, unless connected with things seen, and heard, and felt. Pure abstract conceptions may indeed keep their place in the mind ; but whenever the having entertained such conceptions is remembered, it is only as they may have 7 70 PHYSICALTHEORY been accidentally conjoined with circumstances of place, or company, or with physical sensations. The memory leans upon the material world. On both these accounts then, that is to say, first, be- cause it is peculiarly dependent upon the bodily organi- zation, and secondly, because it is mainly conversant with images of the external world, the faculty of memory is one which, with the highest probability, we may ex- pect to be greatly extended and improved in a new and a more refined corporeal structure. The important consequences of such an extension of memory it can hardly be necessary to specify. A rational agent, what- ever were his other powers, who should be totally desti- tute of memory, (if indeed we can at all form such a con- ception) must occupy a very low place in the scale of being ; nor could either the vividness of his momentary impressions, or the energy or grasp of his reasoning fac- ulties, in any degree compensate for the want of an in- telligent recollection of his past existence. On the other hand, a being of inferior original endowments, but yet gifted with a perfect and invariable consciousness of the whole of his past course, could hardly fail rapidly to accumulate intellectual wealth, and to outstrip those of his competitors who were not gifted in the like manner. After a time such a being would possess an amount of consciousness, if we may so speak, which in itself would be opulence and power. Man, in the present life, occu- pies a middle position, between these two supposed cases ; for his memory, with all its imperfections, and although it retains, at command, a small portion only of what is committed to its keeping, yet retains enough to secure the fruits of experience and study ; and in what it O. F ANOTHER LIFE. 71 actually embraces and performs, it gives a promise of far greater things when it shall be lodged in a corporeal structure, liable to no decay or disturbance. A little steady reflection will open to any one who pur- sues the idea, many momentous consequences involved in the supposition of an entire continuous recollection of our past existence, or of what might be termed, a PLE- NARY MEMORY. In relation to the maturing of the mo- ral life, it is this vivid consciousness of the whole series of our actions and emotions, that is needed for penetra- ting the mind with a sense of its own condition, and for rendering it its own equitable censor. It is manifest that those egregiously false estimates which we so often entertain of our own merits, gain entrance by favour of an oblivion of the most considerable and characteristic por- tions of our moral life. It is from a full and incessant recollection of the past, that are to arise, if at all, and in a due and necessary intensity, those strivings of the spirit with itself, and those compunctious agonies of the heart, whence improvement may result. The trite motto on a sun-dial, non sine luminc, might aptly be transferred to the human conscience, in relation to memory ; and we may believe that when its full light, unabated and perpet- ual, shall be brought to bear upon the soul's sense of good and evil, then shall be developed, in its dread pow- er, the force of the moral principle, as implanted by God incur bosoms. The abstract possibility of an entire restoration of me- mory, or of the recovery of absolutely the whole that it has ever contained, need not be questioned ; or if it were , an appeal might be made to every one's personal experi- ence ; for we suppose there are none to whom it has not 72 PHYSICAL THEORY happened to have a sudden recollection a flashing of some minute and unimportant incident of early life or childhood ; and perhaps after an interval of forty or sixty years. With some persons, these unconnected and un- called for reminiscences are frequent, and very vivid : and they seem to imply that, although the mind may have lost its command over the entire stores of memory, and may no longer be able to recall at will the remote, passages of its history, yet that the memory itself has not really parted with any of its deposits, but holds them faith- fully (if not obediently) in reserve, against a season when the whole will be demanded of it. Might not the hu- man memory be compared to a field of sepulture, thickly stocked with the remains of many generational But of all these thousands whose dust heaves the surface, a few only are saved from immediate oblivion, upon tablets and urns ; while the many are, at present, utterly ost to knowledge. Nevertheless each of the dead has left in that soil an imperishable germ ; and all, without distinc- tion, shall another day start up, and claim their dues. OF ANOTHER LIFE. 73 CHAPTER VI. THE FIFTH AND SIXTH HYPOTHETICAL PREROGATIVES OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY. WHAT is true of the memory, is true also of the law of mental suggestion, or the association of ideas ; namely, thafit depends, in a very intimate manner, upon the func- tions and condition of the brain, and of other vital organs. The unintermitted current of thought which constitutes the staple of our consciousness, and upon which the mind exerts its voluntary power at intervals, and which it partially controls, receives its determining guidance, in each mind, from the peculiarities of the temperament, and the habits, and the original dispositions. The rea- son why such an idea follows such another, in each mind, is to be sought in the conformation, and actual condition of each, including very much that is merely physical, and proper to the animal organization. And yet this involuntary and constitutional suggestion of ideas, as is well known, has a most extensive influence in re- gulating the operations of the higher and the more active faculties. The decisions we come to in common life, the style and subjects of our ordinary conversation, the creations of the imagination, and even the severest pro- cesses of the reasoning faculty, are all modified, and are often originated, by the arbitrary law of association, such as it is, in the mind of the individual ; and this again, re- sults in part from the peculiarities of the animal organi- 7* 74 PHYSICAL THEORY zation. No one accustomed to retrace and to analyse, with philosophic curiosity, the stream of his involuntary ideas, can have failed to notice the paramount influence of merely animal sensations over them. Especially dur- ing sleep, when the accidental association of ideas is entirely freed from the control of reason, each function of life, and each organ, takes its turn in the production of images, and emotions. It seems as if in this move- ment and succession of ideas incessantly going on, sleep- ing and waking, nature was at work, mingling the hete- rogeneous elements of the intellectual and the material worlds, in preparation for the higher processes of the ra- tional and moral life : for, in fact, there is always going on a mental assimilation, or amalgamation, wherein the species of the external universe are being blended with the materials of reason, and with the emotions. This involuntary process is a concocting of that upon which the mind is afterwards, to nourish itself. Throughout the period of infancy and childhood, the involuntary suggestion of ideas takes its course, almost uncontrolled; and it again flows on at random in seasons of debility, delirium, or insanity, and also through the closing years of senile decay. But the mental and moral advancement that distinguishes youth and manhood, con- sists in the gradual (or partial) substitution of a rational and real, for a fortuitous law of suggestion ; or, in other words, of a voluntary, instead of an involuntary series of thoughts. A vigorous and mature mind is one in which the real relations of things, and not their accidental con- nexions, bring them forward, and determine either their continuance, as objects of thought, or their speedy dis- missal. It is easy then to imagine a state wherein the OF ANOTHER LIFE. 75 organic and accidental suggestion of ideas should wholly disappear, and be succeeded by a law of association purely rational ; so that each successive state of the mind should be the true and just consequence of its pre- ceding state, and of actual impressions, and always ac- cording to the rule of abstract fitness. Thus analogy would come in the place of contingency, and truth be substituted for accident. Constituted as we are at present, the body, with its ever- varying conditions, with the fumes of its laborato- ries, with its appetites and its ills, sways the mental being ; and it is only at intervals that the mind fully as- serts its proper supremacy. But the future spiritual body, as we may safely assume, will be the instrument and the mere instrument of the mind, and in every respect will be subordinate to it. That more excellent corporeal structure, whether it be dense or ethereal, whether tangible or not, is not destined to lead the way, or to give law, in any sense, to the intellect : it will not either suggest ideas or infuse emotions : it will not whis- per its own interests to the soul ; for it will have none apart from those of the mind ; nor will it steal an advan- tage upon reason, to insinuate its desires. Reason and moral sentiment, in full vigour, will pursue their course, and be liable to no interior disturbance to no privy conspiracy to no silent and insidious attraction. Our present state is one of alternation between the active and passive faculties, the latter chiefly prevailing ; but the fu- ture being will, as we suppose, be active only, and al- ways so. The human mind now may be compared to a lake among the mountains, exposed to gusts and ed- dies from every ravine that opens upon its margin ; and troubled too by guggling springs from beneath. But the 76 PHYSICALTHEORY same mind, in its future state, may more resemble a river, profound and copious, which, with a steady movement, pursues its way in one direction, and with a force that clears all obstacles, and bears along whatever floats on its surface. The supposition we are now entertaining deserves a little further consideration. That the mind is itself inert, or is disposed to subside into a state of torpor, is what we should be slow to believe ; and it is better to attribute its apparent sluggishness to its connexion with animal organization than to think it inherently inactive. It is certain that no intellectual process can be carried on apart from a concurrent evolution of the cerebral organ, which of course, because it belongs to the animal struc- ture, can be sustained only for a time, and soon gene- rates fatigue, and a sense of pain. Thinking, therefore, like every other voluntary animal function, has its brief period of excitement, and its consequent season of ex- haustion. Thus the mind is subject to lassitude, be- cause it cannot act except with the consent, and by the aid of the body, which is essentially inert, and which de- mands stimulants to move it at all. Perpetual mental activity therefore is not possible in the present state. But now let it be supposed, and the supposition implies very little that is purely conjectural, either that the future spiritual body, as more refined, and less, if at all, depen- dent upon stimulants, shall perform its office in the men- tal processes without any sense of exhaustion ; or, (and this is equally easy to imagine, and it is consistent too with some actual facts,) that the corporeal part of mental operations shall be effected in a manner analogous to the mechanism of the involuntary animal functions, such as OF THE IUKIVEESI OF ANOTHER LIFE. the pulsation of the heart and arteries, the motion of the intestines, (the respiration,) digestion, and the several secretions, all which go on with continuous regularity, and are not attended by any conscious effort, nor produce any fatigue. A small change, perhaps, in the arrangement of parts, and in the functions of the brain, might suffice for effecting this important enhance- ment of our mental economy. Thus it is but the open- ing, or the keeping open, of a foramen between the right and left auricle of the heart, that enables an animal or man to live without incessant respiration ; and thus too, as we may fairly conjecture, the branching off of nerves higher or lower from the brain, or the altered location of some cerebral gland, might, even in the present animal body, allow of perpetual intellectual activity, without ex- haustion, and without any conscious effort. But how vast would be the power so obtained ! The mind, in some such manner advantaged, and set free from the chain that forbids it to move faster, or further at a time than the pulpy substance which fills the cranium, can bear, would instantly assume its proper and its essential vitality, and would work, day and night, regardless of rest. Under the present constitution of human nature, the mind might be compared to an Arabian escort, at- tending a caravan, which, with its cumbrous bales, and its sick and infirm, drags its weary length a stage or so daily ; but only release this escort from its charge, and it starts off, nor can hardly the winds overtake it. A change, such as this, in our mental economy, would not merely augment, incalculably, the mind's power and its means of advancement, and accelerate its operations; but would exclude, perhaps entirely, the many illusions, humiliations, and false judgements that steal upon it, like PHYSICAL THEORY a thief in the night, during its seasons of inertness. Such a new conformation of the corporeal-mental system, by allowing to the mind its essential and constant activity, would leave no room for that fortuitous suggestion of ideas which now comes into play in the alternations of mental activity. The involuntary series of ideas would cede to voluntary and rational conceptions ; and how much of the fatuity and caprice that attach to human conduct, would be shut out, merely by this substitution ! Not indeed that the supposed change would of itself render men wise and virtuous; but it would at least ena- able the wise and the virtuous to hold on their course with a more even consistency. Under such an economy, it is probable that the good would be much better than now they are, and the bad much worse ; we may there- fore readily surmise the reason of the actual constitution of human nature, in this behalf, as fitting mankind for a state wherein neither good nor evil is to reach an abso- lute and unmixed perfection. Were such a lusus na- tures, possible, as that a human being should be born in whose brain the mental process, instead of being con- nected with that portion of the organ which acts by oc- casional incitements, should attach to that portion which keeps the involuntary functions of life in movement such a man (ought we to call him monster or seraph?) would, if otherwise eminently endowed, reach, in early life, the acme which other men do not attain till life be- gins to wane, and in the first years of manhood would be master of all sciences teacher of all wisdom, and di- rector of all affairs. Those who addict themselves to the steady pursuit of truth, in any line of thought, are well aware of the dis- OF ANOTHER LIFE. 79 turbance, and the disappointment, that arise, notwith- standing the utmost efforts to the contrary, first, from the incessant intermixture of ideas foreign to the subject of which the mind is labouring to make itself master, and which irrelevant ideas take their rise from the principle of association ; and then secondly, from the mere spend- ing of the force of the mind, that is to say of its organic force, just at the moment when abstract notions are coming into a position of intelligible relation, and when their correspondence is about to be perceived. The same process, taken up at another time, is not found to present precisely the same elements, or not in precisely the same proportions ; the results therefore differ in the issue, by a little ; and so we fail of the satisfaction of as- certaining truth. In such instances it is as if the furnace of the chemist, upon the continued intensity of which the success of a difficult experiment wholly depends, were supplied only with a niggard allowance of fuel, which is almost always burnt out before the ingredients in the cru- cible are completely assimilated. And it is thus too that argument, orally conducted, al- most always fails of a useful result, even where there are no motives of prejudice, interest, or personal feeling to pervert the judgements of the disputants. One of the parties in the controversy (and perhaps both) is thrown out of his track, at almost every step, by the frivolous and fortuitous suggestions that spring from sounds, terms, and allusions ; and his opponent, weary of bringing him back to the line, or taking advantage of his erratic course, abandons the question, and thinks only of triumphing in the personal combat. Or, as frequently happens, even if the antagonists are equally sincere in their pursuit of truth, and'pretty evenly matched too in intellectual power, 80 PHYSICAL THEORY yet the organic power of the one fails much sooner than that of the other ; and the more infirm party, to conceal his conscious exhaustion, and to cover his retreat, be- takes himself to sophistry and evasion. In fact, it is only on the ground of mathematical science, where the steps of every process of reasoning may be infallibly recorded, so that the whole can be taken up and laid down, without damage, at different times, that the disadvantages we have specified may be warded off. Again ; and to come to our sixth supposed prerogative of the spiritual body ; the mental power, both in its ex- tent and in its kind, depends very much upon the ability (possessed by one mind in a far greater degree than by another) of carrying on several operations simultane- ously. In truth there are certain difficult complex spe- culations which can be pursued only by the few who possess this peculiar ability in an eminent degree ; and here, as in the last-named instance, a new construction of the corporeal-mental system may be hypothetically assumed, such as would at once enhance immensely the ntellectual power. We need not here stay to decide the {preliminary question, whether the power of the mind to carry on several operations simultaneously, is apparent only, or is actual and real ; that is to say, whether, in a strict sense, the mind be capable of any complex acts, or only applies itself, with inconceivable rapidity, in turns to different objects, so as to seem to attend to several at once. This obscure question we may leave in the rear, and take up, as quite sufficient for our present purpose, the plain fact, loosely stated, that the human mind does, without conscious difficulty, carry on two, three, or more OF ANOTHER LIFE. 81 operations within one and the same mental period. Thus, for example, there are few who cannot with ease read aloud, and read with due care and emphasis, while a train of thought, wholly unconnected with the subject of the book, is entertained. Or a conversation may be car- ried on with our neighbour, on the right hand, in com- pany, while we attentively listen to that which is passing between those on our left. Or a piece of music, of dif- ficult execution, is performed, and at the same time schemes are meditated, or powerful emotions indulged. By the means of this faculty extemporary speakers not only deliver themselves with propriety and energy, while the subsequent portions of their argument are being di- gested and arranged ; but note, and turn to their advan- tage, the varying emotions of their auditors, nor lose a smile, a frown, or a sneer, that shows itself on the sea of faces before them. Now this power, actually possessed and exercised by man in the present state, whether it be precisely what it seems or not, may easily be conceived of as augmented, and as enlarged in its compass, when the same mind comes to be lodged in a body that has more appliancy, and a higher finish. And yet this obvious and probable enhancement of our power of attention is not all that may reasonably be looked for, as likely to result from a more refined corporeal constitution. Let it be consid- ered then that the cerebral part of the mental process is, as we have already said, like every other voluntary ope- ration, attended with a sense of fatigue, and that it is fol- lowed by lassitude. Thinking therefore, even in the most vigorous minds, has its limits and its seasons ; nor are these limits to be overpassed without injury or peril to the brain. A single process, or a process that is homoge- 8 82 PHYSICAL THEORY neons and simple, may however be carried on more ea- sily, and longer, than a complex process, or than one that exercises different faculties, and involves heteroge- neous subjects. Indeed any high degree of complexity soon brings on a confusion of ideas, and a collapse of the mental energy. In fact, very few minds voluntarily un- dergo any such difficult labours ; and most make their choice of some single object, and addict themselves there- to in compliance with the natural bent of the mind, or with accidental interests, and wisely turn to the best ac- count the special gifts which nature may have conferred upon them, whether of reason, imagination, or moral sentiment. The habit of simple and single intellectual action soon fixes itself in a definite form, and men be- come mathematicians, logicians, experimenters, poets, artists, moralists, and thus learn to entertain every ob- ject of thought in a technical manner. Hence result those partial apprehensions of general truth which limit the advancement of each mind within narrow bounds : and hence too comes that division of labour in the world of mind, which although productive of advantage on the whole, and in relation to ordinary pursuits, and to some of the secular sciences, yet bars the advancement of phi- losophy in its wider range, and is peculiarly disadvanta- geous in its bearing upon the elevated themes of theolo- gy, which because they are in the most absolute sense universal, are not to be apprehended by any single facul- ty of the mind, but stand in such a manner related to our entire intellectual and moral constitution, as that it is only when every faculty, in harmonious and simulta- neous exercise, is actively engaged upon them, that they can be really embraced. The metaphysician, let his analysis of abstract notions be as exact as it may, still OFANOTHERLIFE. 83 misapprehends the Divine nature, inasmuch as the ana- lytic habit of his mind, and his peculiar mental confor- mation, tend to exclude or to abate the moral and the conceptive faculties ; it is therefore only one set of re- lations which he discerns ; und so the poet, and even the man of acute moral perception, alike misapprehend the Supreme Excellence. On this high and arduous ground we fail, not merely because the infinite transcends the finite, but also because, by inveterate habit, we go on to divide, and to distribute, and classify that, the very es- sence of which is, that it is indivisible and ONE. But inasmuch as the human mind, even now, goes some way (when employed upon lower and more com- mon objects) in carrying on diverse operations simulta- neously, it is very credible that, in the future spiritual bo- dy, this power, depending, as it appears to do, upon the corporeal structure, should be greatly extended. Arid this extension may take place either merely by a higher degree of refinement in the corporeal-mental mechan- ism, such as should allow more activity with Jess effort ; or else, which is the preferable supposition, that the mental process, so far as dependent upon the body, should be placed in analogy with the involuntary ani- mal functions, and so be free to move on without ex- pending the organic force. In either case the mind, feeling itself released from a confinement that had hereto- fore impeded its progress, would at once bring the com- plement of its faculties to bear upon whatever engaged it : it would henceforward fill out its circle of thought and emotion, instead of passing from part to part, and of relinquishing one while it grasps another. The mind thus advantaged, would combine itself with every ele- 84 PHYSICALTHEORY ment of knowledge and feeling ; and while having more to do with synthesis than with analysis, (which at pre- sent, from the limitation of its faculty, it chiefly affects) it would, not the less, discern in their distinctions what- ever really differs in nature. The mind thus set at large, would probably lay aside entirely its habit of attend- ing to things by turns, or in succession, or as if it were tra- versing a line, and would, if we might use the figure, bring a broad percipient surface into contact with broad surfaces, and would act and feel at all points at once. It must be in some such manner, if ever, that the human mind will attain a comprehensive knowledge of the high- est and most momentous truths : it is thus, if at all, that it will become qualified to reason satisfactorily con- cerning the principles of the divine government ; and thus, if ever, that instead of building up and pulling down, with a fruitless iteration, its systems of theology, because something essential is always found to have been omitted, that it shall build, and bind what it builds and so make some real progress in knowing the Infinite Perfection. OF ANOTHER LIFE. 85 CHAPTER VII. THE SEVENTH PROBABLE ADVANTAGE OP THE FUTURE LIFE. THERE is yet a mental advantage, highly desirable in itself, although but moderately enjoyed at present by the human mind ; and it is one which may reasonably be an- ticipated as likely to accrue from a more entire subser- viency of the corporeal economy to the intellect. What we mean is, an intuitive perception of abstract truths, even of a complicated kind; and whether they be mathe- matical or metaphysical. There is, we grant, an intense gratification, and a cre- dit too, resulting from the successful, though laborious prosecution of abstruse principles, through circuitous and intricate paths ; and if we were to adduce, as a signal example, the process of reasoning which has brought our modern astronomy to its present state, and if we think of the steady resolution, as well as grasp of mind, and the intrepidity which have been brought to bear upon the subject, a just exultation on account of the powers of the human understanding may be felt ; and we might be almost ready to decline any imagined ad- vantage, such as should supersede these arduous and elevating labours. Nevertheless, it must be confessed that inasmuch as it is truth, and nothing else, which is the ultimate object of philosophic reasoning, and, as it is the result rather than the process for the sake of which 8* 86 PHYSICALTHEORY so much labour is undergone, a direct or immediate mode of attaining any truth, cannot be otherwise than prefer- able to a circuitous one. The illustrious men who have earned immortal fame on the field of modern science, would unquestionably, any of them, have gladly foregone their individual reputation in exchange for a natural fa- culty of discerning, instantaneously, the entire chain of relations which, in fact, it cost them the labour of their lives to demonstrate. The traveller prides himself upon his achievement who, at the jeopardy of his life, and with incredible efforts, has climbed a peak of the Andes : but would not that same adventurer relinquish the credit he has so won, if, instead of it, he might take the wings of the eagle, and hover at liberty and leisure above the snowy summits? In a mathematical or a metaphysical proposition it is affirmed, that two or more quantities, or beings, or con- ditions of being, though dissimilar in form, or expression, are equal, or are identical ; or that they bear such and such a relation, the one to the other. The subsequent process of reasoning, which establishes or exhibits this affirmed equality, or this identity, consists in nothing but in tracing and naming, one by one, all those intermediate relations, each of which is so simple or obvious that it may instantly be perceived, and will certainly be assent- ed to. But there is always room for some considerable diversity of method in presenting such demonstrations ; and this diversity has respect to the acquirements, the intellectual habits, and the native powers of the minds to which they are to be addressed ; for while in dealing with one mind, it may be necessary to insist, slowly and patiently, upon every intermediate step, and to express OF ANOTHER LIFE. 87 in form the very simplest relations, with other minds any such minuteness would be both superfluous and repul- sive, inasmuch as these more accomplished minds are well able to take in at a glance a wide range of related truths, and are accustomed, with safety and assurance, to advance by leaps or great strides, where the less ex- pert must grope their way. It actually belongs then to the human mind to discern intricate and remote rela- tions: yet this can be done, even by the strongest minds, only within certain limits. There are, moreover, very many abstract relations, such that, with our present faculties we fail to trace them at all, in a direct manner ; and they become known to us only by an inference, drawn from the absurdity of admit- ting any contrary supposition. In fact a considerable portion of our abstract sciences stands under this con- dition, and is assented to, rather because the denial of it involves some impossibility, than because the truth itself can be brought to stand out in our view. The reductio ad absurdum, how useful soever it may be, and indeed necessary with our present limitted faculties, is a method of reasoning that would never be resorted to by minds enjoying a wider range of thought ; and the use of it may be taken as a sure indication of the confinement and im- perfection of our intellectual faculties. Those who, either from an original perspicacity, or as the fruit of an acquired facility, are able to grasp com- plicated abstract relations, may be supposed to do so by the means of an unconscious rapidity in running through all the intermediate relations ; or perhaps, and this seems the more probable supposition, it is by a peculiar power of discerning, at once, what may be called the entire na- ture of the subject, with all its relations, so that the par- PHYSICAL THEORY ticular truth affirmed in any one proposition concerning that nature, stands out clearly as a necessary part of the whole, or as plainly involved in some more comprehen- sive proposition. Now this ability, whether it consist in the power to pass in an instant along a chain of truths, or in the faculty of grasping truth in its universal and most abstract forms, does in fact belong to some, if not to all human minds ; and when we come to ask what it is which prevents inferior intellects from exercising this power in any sensible degree, and what it is which puts a limit to the power, even in the most highly gifted minds, we shall be led to believe that the limitation arises from the condition of the cerebral structure, or from its pathological state, and that it consists in some organic confinement, or stricture, or sluggishness of the brain. That the cause of this difference between one mind and another is corporeal, may reasonably be in- ferred from the fact, that those variations of power of which every one is conscious in himself, spring from the state of the brain, as when, from circumstances unques- tionably of a physical kind, such as the condition of the general health, or the state of the atmosphere, or the in- fluence of stimulants, or the condition of the stomach, the ability to grasp abstract truths, is very greatly en- larged, or is as much contracted. No one mind, it is true, can be made conscious of the individual facilities, or of the difficulties that attach to another ; nevertheless each may scrutinize the variations that affect itself, and may, with some degree of distinctness and certainty, trace the operation of whatever affects the body, in de- pressing or elevating the intellectual vigour. Thus analysing our personal consciousness, and taking our happiest moments as a gauge of the original power of OF ANOTHER LIFE. the mind, (for no man ever outstretches his actual powers) we may feel a strong persuasion that what is needed is only to be still a little more disengaged from organic im- perfections and impediments, in order to our being able to seize, as by intuition, the most remote and intricate abstract truths. The conjecture then is hazarded, and its reasonableness is referred to those who are addicted to the pursuit of abstract science, that a corporeal-men- tal constitution, either more refined than the present ani- mal organization, or entirely disengaged from the organic mechanism of vessels circulating fluids, and secretions, would admit with ease of the intuition of principles, now ascertained by laborious calculations, or by difficult and indirect processes of reasoning. It seems safe to affirm, in relation to what may be abstractedly possible to the human mind, that, whatever it has at any time actually achieved, under extraordina- rily favourable circumstances, or whatever effort it may, for a few moments only, have sustained, the same (to say no more) it might at all times perform, and might continue to perform, if it were but exempted from those causes of embarrassment and exhaustion which are felt to arise from the imperfections of the animal organiza- tion. If indeed we are calculating, in any instance, what it may fairly be expected that men, as they are, will achieve, we must reckon only upon the average amount of their powers bodily or mental. But if the question be What might the human mind achieve, set free from the infirmities and disparagements that attach to individu- als, then it is not the actual average that is to be regard- ed ; but the actual maximum ; and the rarest and most admirable performances of the favoured few, who have 90 PHYSICAL THEORY far outdone their competitors, are to be assumed as the measure of the abstract powers of the human intellect. And even this measure ought to be regarded as probably too low, inasmuch as there is reason to suppose that the most vigorous and the clearest human mind still labours under some considerable disadvantages of a corporeal kind, and would be capable of far more, were it wholly exempted from all the obstructions and obscurities that attach to the animal brain. Now there are well authenticated instances (and that of Newton, often mentioned, is enough for our argument) of the possession, to a great extent, of the power we are speaking of, namely, the ability to discern, at once, and without proof, the remote relations of number and figure. Something of this sort comes within the reach of most minds, addicted, by original taste, to mathematical science. Such, on frequent occasions, step forward beyond the formal process instituted to exclude any affirmation contrary to the one set forth in the theorem ; and in a moment perceive that this theorem is only a special statement of some more universal truth, which truth is intuitively known. What then would be the consequences, and what the practical value of such an emancipation of the intellect from the trammels of calculation and the subtilties of logic ? With a view to finding a reply to this question, it must be kept in mind that the reasoning faculty is in it- self nothing more than an instrument a means to an end a power, subordinate to higher purposes : it is for the truth's sake, and nothing else (if the mind be in- genuous) that we reason or calculate. The necessity we find ourselves under, at any time, of putting this en- OF ANOTHER LIFE. 91 gine in operation, and of keeping it in play through the course of a long and difficult process, cannot in itself, be deemed a perfection. It is indeed well that we possess such a power, and that we are able at any cost, to ascertain remote and abstruse truths ; but surely, no one would refuse to accept the same results, obtained in a readier manner. We do not construct steam engines for the sake of working them ; but for producing the accommodations of life ; nor would a furnace be kindled were we permitted to wield the magician's wand, and at will to surround ourselves with every luxury. As it is, we have time, in the present life, to do little more, in relation to abstract truths, than just to find them out ; or at most, to apply them to some few practical purposes. But let it be assumed that, in another stage of our existence, we shall be freed from the operose methods of calculation and reasoning, and be endowed with the power of intuitively perceiving all the properties and conditions, as well of mathematical as of metaphy - sical entities : the mind, not made indolent by this advantage, would start forward, as from an advanced position, and move on with rapidity toward new and higher ground. Master of all actual and possible rela- tions, affecting space, time, matter, number, and abstract being ; relations it could not consent to leave unknown in the rear, the mind would proceed to inquire concerning the perfections of the Infinite Nature, toward which (there is no doubt) all virtuous intelligences must be tending with an irresistible impulse when once it is directly opened to their meditations. In the present world we pursue the inferior order of abstract truths, be- cause these comprise the only species of absolute per- fection that comes within our range ; but when a still 92 PHYSIC A L THEORY higher, and a vastly higher and more excellent species of truth truth combining all intrinsic attractions, and all practical inferences, shall invite our inquiry, then must it take the supremacy that belongs to it ; and we shall feel the advantage of being able to dismiss, as familiarly un- derstood or discerned, all inferior principles. OFANOTHERLIFE. 93 CHAPTER VIIL THE EIGHTH PREROGATIVE, ACCORDING TO OUR HY-. POTHESIS, OF SPIRITUAL CORPOREITY. A SOCIAL economy, with all its happy and its moment- ous consequences, and apart from which scarcely a half of human nature could be brought into action a social economy demands at once a power of individual privacy, and a faculty of communication. The corporeal lodge- ment of the mind, fencing it from intrusion, provides, as we have assumed, for the first of these purposes ; and in doing so, that is to say, in preventing what might be called, the immediate contact of minds, or their free in- termixture, reduces them to the necessity (at least in the present state) of employing some system of external notices of thought ; or, as they are termed, signs, whether representative and real, or arbitrary, as language. Nor is language important to us merely in our social relations ; for although it can hardly be supposed that a mind absolutely insulated would, in its solitude, have originated language, or could have distinctly felt the want of a means of expression, nevertheless, as language has actually become a part of our intellectual constitu- tion, the use of it exerts an influence over the whole of our mental operations ; and while it facilitates them, in one sense, does also in another, impede and limit the 9 94 PHYSICAL THEORY play of our faculties ; and especially of the highest of those faculties. The constant presence of words in the mind slackens its curiosity, by leading it to believe that it knows what in fact it does not know ; and it renders also its perception of all abstract truths obtuse and con- fused, in so far as the rude symbol of each idea is taken in the stead of the idea itself, and carries with it its con- cretions its excess, and its defect, and its accidental associations. The substitution therefore of some new and more direct, or real means of communication be- tween mind and mind, would not merely place the social economy on a more sure, elevated, and happy ground ; but would, by its indirect consequences, involve very important advantages to the mind in its own operations. Every thing would come before us as fresij, and real, and substantial, if our imperfect and artificial symbols were displaced by a means of expression essentially true and perfect. Language belongs, in the first instance, to the ear, and is afterwards, by a transfer of associations, conveyed to the eye. Nevertheless, when once the written and visi- ble system of symbols has become as familiar to the mind as the audible symbols are, the one connects itself with the associated ideas quite as rapidly and as directly as do the others ; nor do we, in reading, attain the mean- ing of the words circuitously, by first thinking of the sound for which they stand, and then of the meaning of that sound. The two species of symbols, therefore, the visible and the audible, are to be regarded as on a level when presented to the mind, though not entirely so when language is mentally employed, as a vehicle or medium of cogitation, for when so used, it is the sound, rather than the written sign, that is thought of. On account OF ANOTHER LIFE. 95 of this difference we must at present be understood to speak of language oral and audible. Language, consisting as it does of arbitrary signs, is manifestly a rudiment of the material system ; it is a fruit and a consequence of our corporeity, and might, with some propriety, be designated as the point of contact, where mind and matter artificially, yet most intimately blend, and reciprocate their respective properties ; the first namely mind, imparting to the modulations of sound several hundred thousand distinctions, which no- thing less than the boundless refinements of its own con- ceptions, could, to such an extent, multiply and fix: while, on the other hand, the second, namely matter, imposes upon the first its own limitations, and generates innumerable errors, consequent upon its essential rude- ness, and its inferiority, or imparity, as related to the mind. Every machine and every instrument is an adaptation of some existing power, or principle, conferring upon the intelligence that has devised, and that employs it, a special advantage, in carrying on some operation which otherwise would be barely practicable, or not at all so. But whether or not the particular work so performed could be achieved without the instrument ; still the mind which invents and employs it, is always immeasurably superior to its instrument; and whatever refinement of workmanship, or intricacy of construction may belong to the latter, both are less than the skill and intelligence whence they proceed ; and less too than the bodily pow- ers to which they render aid. What is the staff or the hammer to the hand and arm that wield them 1 what the 96 PHYSICAL-THEORY lens or telescope to the eye ? or again, to the mind that reasons on the facts they disclose? or what the sculptor's chisel to the taste and skill that direct it ? or what the lyre and its chords to the soul of melody that trembles on the ringers of the performer ? Now of all the instruments or the artificial combinations which man employs, there is not one at all to be compared with lan- guage ; there is not one nearly so elaborate in its con- struction, or so copious in its materials, or so nice and appliant in its evolutions. The vocabulary of a highly civilized people, as that of the Greeks, Romans, Italians, Germans, English, in- cluding the inflexions employed in its combinations, and including also technical terms, and proper names, must, at an average, be estimated as comprising two hundred thousand distinguishable arbitrary signs ; and a large proportion of these are susceptible, in construction, of very many variations of meaning, so as in fact nearly to double the number of sounds to which distinct ideas are attached. And yet this vast apparatus, taken in its most refined form, is found, in relation to the occasions of the mind, to be scanty, rude, impliable, inexact, and poor : it is nothing better than a material machinery ; but matter falls vastly short of being commensurable with mind. Whether regarded as the instrument of silent and solitary thought, or as the medium of communica- tion between mind and mind, language proves itself so inadequate to some of the purposes to which it is applied, as to forbid the hope that those sciences will ever reach a permanent and indisputable state, which depend upon it as their only means of expression. Mathematical truth, happily, has formed for itself a language adequate to its purposes ; a language real, and liable to no ambi- OP ANOTHER LIFE. 97 guity or variation; but then this is because mathemati- cal science is conversant with the properties of matter, and its relations ; and therefore the instrument of its conveyance, being homogeneous, is sufficient. But how far otherwise is it when we have to do, either with metaphysical abstractions, or with the heights, and depths, and refinements of the human passions and affections ! On this ground how does it want compass, certitude, nicety, power! Language well and truly conveys all those notions that are its own creatures, or that are more modified by it, than they modify the medium of their ex- pression. After having vulgarized and enfeebled our conceptions and our sentiments, language then suffi- ciently represents and recombines what it has first re- duced to its own level. Meanwhile every profoundly empassioned and sensitive mind, and every mind accus- tomed to hold language in abeyance, during its processes of analysis and abstraction, is vividly, and even pain- fully conscious of the inferiority of any actual medium of expression that is at its command. In the recesses of the human soul there is a world of thought which, for the want of determinate and fit symbols, never assumes any fixed form, such as might beneficially constitute a part of the intellectual and moral wealth, or augment the wisdom and virtue of the man. Or if we needed another sort of illustration of the vast superiority of the mind, as measured against its in- strument of expression, we might refer to the facility with which three, five, or even ten or twelve different sets of symbols are held in readiness, and used, almost indifferently, for the conveyance of thought. What a proof is this of the grasp, and of the elasticity, and of the 9* PHYSICAL THEORY master power of mind, that it can, with a sovereign ease, and just as a man lays down one tool, and takes up an- other, so lay down and take up at pleasure this or that vo- luminous machinery of signs ! Let it be supposed that each language of five, familiarly commanded by any one, comprises not more than twenty-five thousand words (including inflections) then does the mind hold each of these sets of signs, with all the special rules that affect the construction of each, unconfounded and distinct, so as in a moment to be able to detach its passing train of ideas from one of these systems of signs, and to affix it to another ! Now this wonderful facility in so playing with these operose and cumbrous engines, and in so shifting instantaneously the entire system of intimate mental associations, is by no means to be considered barely as a proof of great ability in the individual, or of the reach of the memory, but rather as a tacit, yet sure indication of the immeasurable (not indeed infinite) in- herent power of the human mind, to which such opera- tions may become so familiar as to be performed almost without the consciousness of any effort. Of what then might this same mind be capable, if furnished with an engine of expression homogeneous with itself, plastic in quality, and commensurate with its faculties! Now there are two suppositions, either of which may, with some reason, be entertained relative to the means of communication in a higher economy ; the first of which is, that in the stead of a system of signs adapted, as all our signs are primarily, to sensible objects, and derived from the material world, and transferred by figure to things abstract and intellectual, there should be con- structed a system primarily adapted to things abstract OF ANOTHER LIFE. and intellectual, and drawn from the world of mind, and therefore strictly proper to notions of this class, and nei- ther more, nor fewer, nor other, than those notions are ; nor in any such way convertible as to give rise to am- biguities of expression, and confusions of thought. Such a medium of communion, it is manifest, being the mind's own creature, and its commensurate power, would, in all its applications, both as an engine of cogitation and as a means of communication, transcend the most perfect of our mundane languages, as far as any one of our lan- guages transcends the mute signs and awkward grima- ces resorted to by men not understanding each other's tongue. With a language of this real kind at command, and which would be a true reflection of itself, a just and clear image of thought and emotion, the mind would feel as if the broad light of day pervaded its in- most recesses, or as if its very self were repeated in every expression ; the likeness of the mind and soul would be such as is returned of the person by the most highly pol- ished mirror ; or to adduce the most complete illustra- tion of the advantages of a real intellectual language, such as we have imagined, we must again refer to the in- stance of the language of mathematical science, which, because homogeneous with the truths it conveys, is fault- less, infallible, and liable to no mutations in the lapse of ages : it is exempt from the caprices of fashion, and su- perior to the individual errors and infirmities of those through whose hands it is transmitted. Now a language formed by the mind for itself, and after it has become fully furnished with abstract ideas, and after the purely intellectual part of its circle of notions has gained a due prevalence over sensible images, such a language, con- sisting of symbols of abstractions, not of the symbols of 100 PHYSICAL THEORY the symbols of those abstractions, would be to the mind, and to its operations, what the language of geometry, and algebra, and of the modern calculus, is to the truths thereby conveyed. And the consequence of employing this homogeneous and perfect medium would be the su- perseding of all fluctuating systems of metaphysics, and theology, and morals, the exclusion of endless and fruit- less altercations on such subjects, and the gradual ac- cumulation and consolidation of an ABSOLUTE PHILOSO- PHY metaphysical, theological, and moral. Our modern philosophy, in all branches, has now been about twenty-five centuries in growth ; and during the last five of these centuries, a solid and permanent ad- vancement has been made in all those sciences which command a medium of expression adapted to their na- ture, and exempt from ambiguities and fluctuations. But meanwhile abstract intellectual philosophy (putting out of the question the general rectification of sentiments and notions accruing from the influence of Christianity) re- mains what and where it was, in the bright times of Gre- cian intelligence. The preliminary work of fixing the sense of terms, and of advancing axioms, has still to be done anew by every professor of these studies ; and his labour is scarcely completed before it is broken up and cast aside by his successors. This incertitude appears to admit of no remedy. The second supposition that offers itself in relation to the communion of minds, is this, namely, that the me- thod of expression by arbitrary signs should be altogether superseded, and that in the place of it the mind should be endowed with a power of communication, by a direct and plenary conveyance of its own state, at any moment, OF ANOTHER LIFE. 101 to other minds ; as if the veil of personal consciousness might, at pleasure, be drawn aside, and the entire intel- lectual being could spread itself out to view. " If there are tongues, " says the apostle, " they shall fail ; " and it may be intended, not merely that the various languages of earth shall be exchanged for the one language of hea- ven, but rather that language itself, or the use of arbitrary symbols, shall give place to the conveyance of thought, in its native state, from mind to mind. The conveyance of emotions, by the varying expression of the counte- nance, and which is understood as if instinctively by in- fants and by animals, gives us a faint indication at least of a mode of communication much more intuitive and immediate, than that of language : nor is it very difficult, by the aid of this instance, to carry forward our con- ceptions so far as to grasp what we are now suppos- ing, namely, an instantaneous and real unfolding of the thought and feeling of one mind, by an act of its own, to other minds. We say by an act of its own, for the purposes of a moral economy, and the preservation of the individuality of character, seem necessarily to de- mand the seclusion of each mind, except so far as it may spontaneously discover itself. This seclusion and individuality appears also to be involved, as we have al- ready remarked, in corporeity. Of the same kind with the expression of feeling by the countenance, is the conveyance of the fine distinctions of thought and emotion by the means of the modulations of the voice, which in fact amount to a second power, su- peradded to the mere conventional value of language. What is conveyed by emphasis, and still more by tones, often far surpasses what is contained, or could be con- 102 PHYSICAL THEORY tained, in the words as written. This language of tones is a real language, suffused, if we may so speak, through the mass of arbitrary signs, and serving to give them a double force ; it is a vital energy, informing an inert body. Those who have had much to do with children, must have observed that they slowly acquire their knowledge of arbitrary terms, and especially of abstract phrases, in a great degree, by the aid of their instinctive apprehen- sion of the meaning of tones, and of the expressions of the countenance. It seems as if this real language were implanted in all minds, and being understood without teaching and without induction, is made the means of acquiring that which can be known only by instruction and habit. In this fact have we not an indication of a future means of communion, more real, and immediate, and instinctive, than that of arbitrary symbols 1 The in- tellectual power of music furnishes another, and an anal- ogous instance of the conveyance of emotions, with dis- tinctness and force, by means more natural than that of conventional signs. Melody and harmony have a fixed affinity with the several emotions of our moral con- stitution ; and they awaken, with unvarying uncertainty and precision, this or that sentiment or passion. In this instance we have an example of the corporeal convey- ance of the states of one mind to other minds, founded upon the original conformation of mind, as combined with matter. And this mode of communion may easily be conceived of as much extended and improved. Whether we prefer the first or the second of the above named suppositions, the consequences must be nearly the same; for an arbitrary language, if absolutely perfect, and framed from intellectual, not from material types, would perhaps fall very little short in accuracy or power, OF ANOTHER LIFE. 103 of an immediate revelation of the inmost mind, as a mode of intercourse ; and in either case, the interchange of knowledge and feeling would be incalculably promoted, and at the same time the mind, in its solitary operations, would be freed from the thousand illusions that take their rise from the ambiguous and impliable languages of the present state. There is, however, a point of difference between the two suppositions which deserves to be noticed, and it is this ; that whereas the use of language, let it be as per- fect as it may, makes it necessary for the mind to tread always upon a single line of thought, at a time, and to divert from that line as often as it would give utterance to feelings or ideas of another species on the con- trary, if the mind were able to unveil itself independently of any medium of expression, and if, as we have before supposed, a more refined corporeal structure should en- able it to pursue simultaneously, several distinct classes of ideas, then would the intercourse of minds fill a vastly wider circle than otherwise it could ; and in fact those complex truths, and those mixed impressions, might be conveyed which, on the very account of their complexity, are not at all to be communicated in their real nature or their full force, so long as it is necessary to sunder them, and to dole them out piece-meal. It is easy to under- stand how happily this advantage must bear upon the advancement of the junior members of a vast social economy, in their intercourse with those who have long ago scaled the heights of divine philosophy ; for although the infant capacity of the learners (as well as other rea- sons) might put limits to the communication of know- ledge, yet whatever it was judged expedient to convey, 104 PHYSICAL THEORY might be conveyed in its genuine form ; and it would be truth entire, although truth in part ; whereas, at present, we learn little if any thing, and especially in relation to things spiritual, that is not so conveyed as to give birth to many errors of apprehension, and so as to authenticate such errors, by intermixture with unquestioned truths. Language, or the symbolic conveyance of thought, is but a melody, sweet yet simple ; but a plenary utterance of the soul, such as we have here imagined, would, in com- parison, be a swelling harmony as of many voices and instruments. OF ANOTHER LIFE. 105 CHAPTER IX. THE NINTH POINT OF ADVANTAGE BELONGING TO THE CONTRAST BETWEEN ANIMAL ORGANIZATION, AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. THE present animal body, although justly considered as the instrument and auxiliary of the mind, is very far from being merely such; but on the contrary, has its proper interests, and its peculiar impulses and instincts ; and these are of so peremptory a sort as often to prevail absolutely over those of the mind. But now we assume it as probable that the future corporeal structure, whether it be ethereal or palpable, shall be the INSTRUMENT OF THE MIND, and nothing else, that it shall have no purely organic welfare to provide for; and in a word, that it shall, in the strictest sense, be the servant of the intel- lectual and moral nature ; just as the hand, the foot, or the eye, is the servant of the body. The serious, and too often fatal disadvantage, which we undergo in commencing life as animals merely, and in having the interests of the animal nature, consolidated and secured by habits, and by powerful impulses, before the higher welfare of the soul, or of the intellect, comes to be thought of, is a trite subject of fruitless complaint, and one not necessary here to be insisted upon. This order of things is no doubt unavoidable, and abstractedly proper to the initial stage of our existence ; but it is easy to conceive of a very different economy, and one that, 10 106 PHYSICAL THEORY while it should afford all the benefits derivable from a corporeal union of mind arid matter, would be exempt from the dangers and degradation thence accruing in the present state. The animal body is not only mechanically divisible, and destructible and easily injured, but it is also in- cessantly preying upon itself; and it speedily dissolves, unless sustained by assimilative materials. This liability to dissolution, and to external violence, necessarily in- volves keen sensibilities, and powerful appetites ; and it also demands an instinctive dread of death. Now these various pleasurable sensations and desires, and these sensibilities to pain, and these instinctive fears, are ordinarily paramount, and unremitted, and therefore take the lead of every other impulse, and give law to, or virtually overrule, the course of life, and to a great extent countervail what, abstractedly, we should say, was th and seem an accidental circumstance, thrown in upon the main design. But if a principle so rich and free be in- deed the law of the Creative Power, it will show itself in all worlds ; and most of all in those warm and resplendent spheres where the elementary conditions are such as pe- culiarly to favour its developement. The prejudices (not perhaps very culpable) of a some- what morbid spirituality, would perhaps lead us to distaste the animated world around us, as God's work,* or to be scandalized at some of its conditions ; and thus it is con- ceivable that the realities of the upper world, when first they open upon minds imbued with prepossessions of this kind, may excite a recoil and an amazement, that will try the principles of piety. Let it just be conceived of that a spirit, born and trained in some pure ethereal region of reason and love, and where no orders of creatures inferior to itself had ever been seen or heard of, and where the at- tributes of Deity, in the most abstract mode of their ex- pression, had alone been contemplated ; let it be suppos- ed that such a spirit was told it should be taken where the Creative Power had put itself forth in quite another manner ; and then that it should be brought, without fur- ther preparation, to this planet of ours, and be placed in the depth of a teeming wilderness of the torrid zone ; and * The ancient manichean doctrine gave a bold and distinct ex- pression to this order of prejudices ; and it was plainly avowed, by the authors of that system, that they could not admit the present world, with its animal species, to be the work of supreme benevo- lence, wisdom, and purity. Nothing is more dangerous than to in- dulge notions which tend to make us think our tastes and princi- ples more refined and elevated than those of the Creator and Ruler of the universe. Something of this infatuation very commonly be- sets ardent and abstracted minds. 17 190 PHYSICAL THEORY there led to examine, not only the luxuriance and beauty of the vegetable orders, but the forms, instincts, habits, of the insect tribes, and of the reptiles, the birds, the quad- rupeds, which people the sultry forest. Now although ourselves, with the preparation we have gone through, are in position to admire these various orders, and in fact to derive from this very source, a main portion of the evi- dence of natural theology, may it not be imagined that, to a pure spirit, such as we have here supposed, the effect of the whole exhibition, and of all its details, would be to generate a sort of wonder, not unmixed with perplexity, and even distress 1 Something perhaps 'analogous to this may await the human mind when, after having entertained abstract no- tions of the Divine Nature, and in forming which we have consulted our own narrow conceptions of what ought to be, rather than coolly considered what is, we are introduc- ed into another domain of God's universal empire, where, instead of the meagre and colourless outline which had stood before our poor imaginations, we behold the rich and various products of the Infinite Intelligence ; all indeed bright and good ; but good in a sense related to infinite, not to finite reason. Now the products of infinite power and absolute wisdom not merely surpass our powers and our notions in dimensions, but in kind also, and in lead- ing principles. That is to say, the universe is not only more vast than we can measure or conceive of; but it is more various than we are apt to imagine ; and moreover it involves and exhibits motives or reasons of procedure, such as would by no means have occurred to us, as natu- ral, or as abstractedly probable, considered in relation to what we assume concerning the divine attributes. Now to revert a moment to our present conjecture, OF ANOTHER LIFE. 191 concerning the construction and intention of the visible universe, there are some perhaps who, in the loftiness of their religious conceptions, would resent, as totally un- worthy and grovelling, the supposition that the sun of our own system, and that each sun of each system, is a heaven to its planetary tribes, and that this solar heaven is stocked with various orders of sentient beings. Let then the supposition be discarded by those who distaste it, and assuredly the author has no fond anxiety to defend and retain it ; nor does he attach any value to it, otherwise than so far as it may serve a purpose which he deems in some degree important, namely, that of tending to bring our religious conceptions into definite alliance with the real world, and with nature, and to break up a little, those vague and powerless notions which place our religious expectations at a dim remote- ness from whatever is substantial and effective. Let us try to persuade ourselves that the future and unseen world, with all its momentous transactions, is as simply natural and true, as is this world of land and water, trees and houses, with which now we have to do. The opinion has been often advanced, and seems to be gathering strength, that the sun and other stars, that is to say the entire celestial system visible to us, is in actual movement, in one direction ; or that it is revolv- ing around a common centre. But who shall calculate the dimensions of that central mass which may be ade- quate to sustain the revolutions of all suns and worlds ? This opinion is just named in this place, that we may point out its relation to our present conjecture. If each sun be a place of assembly, and a home of immortality to the rational planetary tribes of its system, the vast 192 PHYSICAL THEORY world around which all suns are supposed to be revolv- ing, may be the home of a still higher order of life, and the theatre of a still more comprehensive convocation of the intellectual community. There remains, however, one point of geological and mathematical speculation which ought to enter into our present conjecture. It is then believed, on the ground of a calculation of forces, that our own planet, and others, are not solid globes, but hollow spheres, or sphe- rical shells including a perhaps irregular, but vast cavity, and this cavity occupied by some elastic fluid or gas. Does then this inner and hidden world subserve any purpose connected with the destinies of those who are treading or who have trodden the surface ? or has the dim cavern sentient tribes of its own 1 We do not pro- pose to pursue the conjecture; but yet must just place it in apposition with that very ancient, and may we not say biblical classification of all intelligent orders, under the three heads of celestials, terrestrials, and subterra- neans ; or as they are designated by St. Paul, the stfoupa the stfsioi, and the x * Phillippians ii. 10; where the universal sovereignty of the Son of God is distinctly stated as including the three great orders- of the intelligent economy the heavenly, the earthly, and the subterrene. This passage should be compared with Romans xiv. 9 ; where the course passed through by the Saviour of men is declared to have had a reference to the due exercise of his destined sway over the dead and the living ; or, according to the opinion which the apostle may be held to adopt and sanction, over the in- habitants of the superficial world, and of the abyss, or central cavern. Again we should refer to Revelation v. 3, and 13, where (which is especially to be noted) the designation of the Kara^Q^ viot is varied, and they are described as those who are V-KOKOLTW rtjs yijs and where, moreover, they are associated with those who gladly render " blessing and honour, and glory and power, to him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb." OF ANOTHER LIFE. 193 This classification of intelligent beings, we should remember, by no means corresponds with the distribu- tion we are most accustomed to think of, namely, that which arranges all rational beings into the three classes of the inhabitants of heaven, holy and happy ; the inhab- itants of earth, who are on their probation ; and the con- demned and infernal spirits. For, on the one hand certain classes of the celestials, the stfoupavtoi, are spoken of by St. Paul as in open opposition to the divine gov- ernment,* while, on the other hand, the infernals, or the inhabitants of the nether region, or of Hades, are repre- sented as the subjects of the Messiah's kingly function; and also (as in the passages mentioned in the note) as joining with the celestials and the terrestrials, in an an- them of praise to God and the Lamb. This, however, is not the place for pursuing any bibli- cal or properly theological question. All we now at- tempt is just to state the fact, that there is an apparent or conjectural correspondence between the biblical clas- sification of the intellectual community, and our hypoth- esis concerning the three modes of existence which seem to be provided for in the structure of the material universe. If we rightly understand the affirmations and the intimations of the inspired writers, man is destined to pass through three stages of life ; the first, upon the surface of the earth, arid subject to the conditions of animal organization ; the second (if we do not mistake the apostolic words) " under the earth," and in a transi- tion-form, of attenuated and inactive corporeity ; and the third, and ultimate, in a region of power, incorrupt- ibility, and full activity. This our first conjecture * Ephesians vi. 12. + 17 194 PHYSICAL THEORY then, concerning the material universe, considered as the frame of the intellectual economy, brings the visible and the invisible worlds into conjunction in that manner which, at a glance, offers itself to our ac- ceptance as obvious and natural. Nevertheless, what- ever may be the pretensions of this hypothesis, we hold it cheap ; and go on to state another, which may equally well consist with what we are bound to believe on better evidence. OF ANOTHER L I F E CHAPTER XVII. THE SECOND CONJECTURE. BUT we are now to hold in abeyance, or altogether to exclude the conjecture above stated, concerning the material universe, as adapted to sustain three orders of intelligent beings ; and on the contrary, shall assume that planets and suns alike, and all worlds, visible and palpable, are the theatres of animal life merely ; and that whatever species may inhabit these spheres, are subject to decay and corruption;. This supposed; then our second conjecture is That, within the field occupied by the visible and ponderable universe, and on all sides of us, there is existing and moving another element, fraught with another species of life corporeal indeed, and various in its orders, but not open to the cognizance of those who are confined to the conditions of animal organization not to be seen, nor to be heard, nor to be felt by man. We here assert, and insist upon, the abstract probability that our five modes of perception are partial, not universal means of knowing what may be around us ; and that as the physi- cal sciences furnish evidence of the presence and agency of certain powers of nature which elude the senses, ex- cept in some of their remote effects, so are we denied the right of concluding that we are conscious of all real existences within our sphere Something must presently be said with the view of 196 PHYSICAL THEORY loosening the natural prejudice which impels us to con- clude that nothing corporeal can elude our senses, but first let the conjecture now in hand be distinctly stated. There prevails throughout the system of nature a per- vading of the dense elements by the less dense, or the fluid, or gaseous. Thus all solid bodies are penetrated, either by humidity, or by the elastic gases, or by the im- ponderable elements, light, heat, electricity, magnetism. Again, fluids are, in like manner, pervious to other fluids, with which they may combine ; and also to elastic gases, and to the elements just named ; and in its turn, the rarest gas is traversed by, and commingled with, other elastic bodies, and by heat, electricity, or magnetism. In some cases the pervading element affects the element per- vaded ; thus heat expands metals, and at a certain point fuses them ; and so galvanism puts into activity the che- mical affinities of many solids and fluids. But in other cases the pervading element takes its course through the pervaded body without giving any indication, upon that body, of its presence, or of its passage. Thus electricity may pass, unnoticed, through a perfectly conducting sub- stance, or the magnetic attraction takes its way through intervening bodies, which in no sensible manner it dis- turbs ; and thus too does the power of gravitation take effect at the greatest distances, without rendering itself sensible in any other manner than that of effecting an approximation of masses. But is this constant principle of the visible world, which shows itself in a thousand modes around us is it ex- hausted and done with, in the instances which our modern physical discoveries have brought to light ? We should confidently assume the contrary, and believe nothing less OF ANOTHER LIFE. 197 than that it has a still further and higher play in relation to the sentient and intellectual universe. That is to say, we insist upon the abstract probability of the existence, on all sides of us, of an invisible element, sustaining its own species of beings ; some perhaps as slenderly en- dowed with rational faculties as are the insect tribes of earth, and others, in gradation, rising to the highest pitch of intelligence and moral dignity : some accountable and immortal ; others ephemeral and prompted only by instincts. Our present conjecture reaches to the extent of sup- posing that, within the space encircled by the sidereal revolutions, there exists and moves a second universe, not less real than the one we are at present conversant with ; a universe elaborate in structure, and replete with life ; life agitated by momentous interests, and per- haps by frivolous interests ; a universe conscious per- haps of the material spheres, or unconscious of them, and firmly believing (as we do) itself to be the only reality. Our planets in their sweep do not perforate the structure of this invisible creation ; our suns do not scorch its plains ; for the two collated systems are not connected by any active affinities. We see that the Creator works on a scale which, in a mathematical sense, is greater than can be computed or imagined ; and that he advances toward the infinite in both directions ; that is to say, toward the infinitely great, and the infinitely small. We see also that the utmost range of variety, both in principle and form, is taken in the construction of the sentient system ; and that the physical capacity of our own world for sustaining life is enlarged by the suffusion of element upon element, each peopled with its animated orders. We are therefore al- 198 PHYSICAL THEORY most compelled to entertain the belief that the very same law goes on, as far as it can go on, and that the invisible orders are not less numerous than the visible. Our sight and touch take us on to a certain stage of the creation, informing us of whatever lies beneath, or upon that stage; and there they stop. But is the eye of man the measure of the Creator's power 1 has he created nothing which he has not exposed to our senses ? The contrary seems much more than barely possible ; ought we not to think it almost certain ? In stating the conjecture that the two worlds, the visi- ble and the invisible, may coexist within the same space, unconscious of each other, and not related by any affini- ties, we assume what is abstractedly possible; but should unquestionably consider as more probable the supposition that the two orders of existence, whether consciously or not, on both sides, are yet really related one to the other, and that in fact the one is an after-stage to the other. Here again we cling to the aid furnished in so many cases by actual analogies. Let it be considered then, that while there is among many of the terrestrial orders, a tendency to advance from a lower to a higher mode of existence, and in all a progression from the germ to the bud, and from the bud to the fruit, and from the embryo to the perfect ani- mal ; and while the human mind indicates this law in its desire of advancement, in the general sentiment of hope the most permanent impulse of our nature, and in its aspirations after immortality ; while we say there is this upward and onward tendency in the sentient and ra- tional world, the desires and propensities of all orders impel them also in the contrary direction, and lead all to OF ANOTHER LIFE. 199 seek their support, and their gratification, rather beneath than above the level of their natures, respectively. This downward tendency is the most remarkable in man, who is always seen (powerful corrective influences apart) to seek his happiness in a lower range of gratifications. Man may be destined to rise on the scale of existence ; but his actual disposition is to descend. Indeed when most alive to the elevating motives of intelligence and piety, he is still, by his constitution, and the necessities of his nature, compelled to converse chiefly with things of a lower range, and to be employed in affairs little ac- cordant, apparently, with his high hopes. Now something akin to this law of attachment to things beneath us, may affect the invisible orders. They may, while in progress upward by destiny, yet, by actual in- stinct and impulse, be looking downward : they may crowd around the solid masses of the material -universe as birds in migration alight upon the sails and masts of ships in the mid ocean ; they may concern themselves with the interests of the planetary tribes, and make them- selves parties in the affairs of the lower world. All this may be, without supposing that such supernal beings are actuated by motives unworthy of their rank ; for, as we see, apart from any degrading sentiment, or sensual taste, the human mind delights itself in the order and beauty of the animal creation, explores too the constitu- tion of the inanimate world, finds its recreation among the humblest varieties of the vegetable and animal spe- cies, and especially draws the most refined gratifications of its rational tastes from the pursuit of the mere rela- tions of extension and number ! We would not follow a too abstruse idea, and yet are inclined to believe that the very law of dependent na- 200 PHYSICAL THEORY lures, which, apart from the constant energy of the Di- vine will, would reduce them to nothing, actually ope- rates so far as to produce a sort of intellectual gravita- tion of all rational beings, toward the lower ranks of ex- istence. So, while there are impulses bearing us up- ward and onward ; there is also a uniform tendency down- ward, or toward that nihility out of which we sprang. But this notion we merely mention, and pass on. The conjecture of an invisible, sentient, and rational economy, coexistent with the visible universe, and occu- pying corporeally the same field, comports well enough, as we shall presently see, with the intimations of scrip- ture concerning the spiritual world ; and it consists also with every analogy of the physical system, as understood by modern science ; for it is ascertained that ponder- able elements pervade one the other that the impon- derable pervade all that different kinds of emanations or vibrations pass and repass, in the most intricate man- ner, through the same spaces, without in the least degree disturbing each other ; and finally, that the most power- ful agencies are in operation around us, of which we have no immediate perception, and which we detect only by deductions from circuitous experiments. Nevertheless our present conjecture, although so amply sustained by various analogies, infringes upon certain natural preju- dices, which impel us, contrary to the discoveries of science, to assume that there can be nothing near us, when we perceive nothing ; or that our senses attach to, and reveal, all species of corporeal existence that come within their range. But a little attention to the subject will suffice to show that this organic confidence is noth- ing better than a prejudice ; and that it ought to be set OP A N O T H E R L I FE . 201 off from our philosophic speculations ; it is in fact wholly destitute of foundation. Nothing is easier than to conceive of human nature as destitute of some one of its faculties of sensation ; and in truth there are frequent instances in which one of the senses is totally wanting. Now in such cases the mind is cut off from a possible and real relationship to the ma- terial system, and goes about conversing with the exterior world, utterly unconscious of those properties which should affect the sense it is deprived of; and in such a case, this individual mind, unconscious of light, or of sound, or of tastes, or of odours, is in a position precisely analogous to that in which we assume all human minds, within the limits of animal organization, to be : that is to say, surrounded by properties or powers of which they have no kind of perception, and of which they can form no idea. In relation to smell and taste, which are the least con- stant, or the most occasional of the senses, and the least extensive in their range, we can readily conceive of our- selves as destitute of them entirely ; and can also easily grant that there may be many properties around us, analo- gous to those made known to us by the gustatory and ol- factory organs, of which we have no perception. We never deem it incredible that there may be effluvia or sapid substances, such as escape detection by the smell and taste ; on the contrary, the existence of some such unperceived qualities or substances is very frequently as- sumed as probable. We are somewhat less ready to im- agine that there may be modulations of the atmosphere of a kind which the tympanum does not catch ; although it maybe proved that the undulations of sound, like other undulations, may so intersect, as to annul each other. 18 202 PHYSICAL THEORY It is therefore credible, not only that there may be sounds too delicate to affect the human ear ; but also sounds of a species of which the auditory nerve is insensible. Sound is conveyed, not by the atmosphere only ; but by other elastic bodies ; and by some much more rapidly and per- fectly than it is by the air : as for example, by water, ice, and timber. In fact* the atmosphere, although the most usual, is one of the most sluggish of the conductors of sound. With these facts under our view, the conjecture comes near to be verified, when we suppose that there may be an elastic ether, susceptible of sonorous vibrations in a still more delicate manner, and capable of conveying these vibrations much further, and more instantaneously, than any of the bodies actually known to us. Or we might go a step further. The sensation of light is now believed to result from the vibrations, not the emanations, of an elastic fluid or ether ; but this same element may be capable of another species of vibrations ; or the elec* trie, or the magnetic fluids may be susceptible of some such vibrations ; or an element, as universally suffused as light, through the universe, may be the medium of sonorous undulations, equally rapid and distinct,and serv- ing to connect the most remote regions of the universe by the conveyance of sounds ; just as the most remote are actually connected by the passage of light. Yet the sonorous vibrations of this supposed element may be far too delicate to awaken the ear of man ; or in fact, of a kind not perceptible by the human auditory nerve. We refuse to allow that a conjecture of this sort is ex- travagant, or destitute of philosophic probability : on the contrary, consider it as borne out, in a positive sense, by the discoveries of modern science. Might we then rest OF ANOTHER LIFE. 203 for a moment upon an animating conception ( aided by the actual analogy of light ) such as this, namely, that the field of the visible universe is the theatre of a vast social economy, holding rational intercourse, at great dis- tances. Let us claim leave to indulge the belief, when we contemplate the starry heavens, that speech inquiry and response commands and petitions debate and instruction, are passing to and fro : or shall the imagina- tion catch the pealing anthem of praise, at stated seasons arising from worshippers in all quarters, and flowing on with a thundering power, like the noise of many waters, until it meet and shake the courts of the central heavens ! But the natural prejudice which stands in the way of our analogical conjectures is firmer in relation to the ob- jects of sight, than in any other parallel instance. The vastness of the field over, which the faculty of vision gives us a command, the precision and permanence of this class of our perceptions, and especially the constant relation subsisting between the senses of sight and touch ( in themselves the most constant of the senses, ) so that whatever affects the latter, does, or may, affect the former, and the converse we say these conditions of the visual faculty impel us powerfully, and almost irresistibly, to suppose that nothing corporeal can escape it, and that where NOTHING is SEEN, NOTHING EXISTS. But now is this instinctive persuasion in relation to sight, at all better founded than we have admitted it to be in relation to the other senses? We are compelled to grant there may be properties analogous to those that are the objects of taste and smell, which entirely elude our powers of perception ; nor can we deny the possibility of there being sonorous vibrations inaudible ( in degree or kind ) to the human ear, What then are our perceptions of 204 PHYSICAL THEORY colour and form, but the consequences of the emanations? or the vibrations of a certain elastic element, as the per- ceptions of smell are the consequences of the emana- tions of another elastic element 1 These vibrations of light are repelled, or repeated, by all bodies which also af- fect the sense of touch ; and by this double means we as- sure ourselves of the presence the forms, the distances, of solid and fluid bodies. Meantime, by other means, we ascertain the presence of some elements not percep- tible by the touch, and of some that are not perceptible by the eye ; and we have indirect or inductive evidence of the presence of some, in no way immediately percep- tible, or otherwise to be known except in their ultimate effects. Thus the presumption that the eye sees whatever is material, fails when we examine it; nor can we with rea- son allow it to influence our conclusions or conjectures. The magnetic influence or stream is not palpable, as is a current of water, or of air; nor is it visible, like the former, but yet it proves its reality by giving a regular figure to loose particals of iron, and by sustaining a mass of steel in contact with the magnet. In this instance* touch and sight go no further thartto make us acquainted with the product of an occult power. On the table be- fore us a needle, nicely balanced, trembles, and turns with constancy towards a certain spot in the arctic regions; but an iron box, placed near it, disturbs this tendency, and gives it a new direction. We assume then the pre- sence of an element and a power, universally diffused, of which we have no direct perception whatever. Now let it be imagined that the sheets of a manuscript, scattered confusedly over the table and the floor, are seen slowly* and with a tremulous movement, to be adjusting them* selves according to the order of the pages, as already OF ANOTHER LIFE 205 numbered, and that at last every leaf and every loose fragment has come into its due place, and is ready for the compositor. In such a case we should assuredly assume the presence of an invisible rational agent, just as in the case of the oscillations of the needle, we had assumed the presence of an invisible elementary power. Now although, in the one instance, we think of nothing but what is natural and ordinary, while in the other we must attribute the facts to a supernatural agent, and are more startled or perplexed by the one than the other, is there any ground whatever for considering the one as ab- stractedly incredible, and impossible, while the other is known to be real and ordinary ? It is true the one has never happened to ourselves, and the other frequently or constantly occurs ; but if the senses, all of them together, totally fail to detect the magnetic power, until by the ac- cident of a balanced needle it makes itself known, in one of its effects, may not these same senses also fail in de- tecting a sentient and rational power, near to us ; and whether or not this rational power shall give us some pal- pable evidence of his presence ? Our conclusion is that our instinctive persuasion of the non-existence of that, concerning which none of the senses afford us any inti- mation, is a prejudice, not entitled to any respect, if it stands in the way of a belief sustained by independent reasons. The possibility and probability of the existence, near us, of invisible sentient beings, may be stated in another manner. Sensation may be considered as the product of two powers, combined, or acting one upon the other. On the one side there is the material property the ema- nation or the vibration of ethereal and elastic elements ; and 18* 206 PHYSICAL THEORY on the other side the percipient faculty, or the power of being wrought upon by these material vibrations. Now it is only fair to suppose that these correlative powers are, at least, so far analogous, or similar, as that if the one be invisible, and impalpable, and imponderable, the other may be so too. If the exciting principle, although pre- sent, and potent, may elude detection, in every way, ex- cept that one in which it affects the single sense ; may not the percipient principle be equally invisible, and im- palpable 1 To adduce a familiar illustration, the scent of musk, powerful as it is, may fill a chamber, and yet it is totally unperceived by the eye, and the touch, and the ear, and the taste ; nevertheless it is an energetic in- fluence, although attenuated in a degree inconceivable ; for it will remain attached to walls and apparel years after the substance of the perfume has been withdrawn. Why then should not the olfactory sense be capable of exist- ing in an equally impalpable and invisible condition ? or why may it not be attenuated in an equal degree, and yet retain its power and reality ? The scent emanates indeed from a solid and tangible substance ; and the sensation is attached to a solid and tangible organ ; but as the actual emanation is invisible and impalpable, so may be the per- ception, and the perceptive being. The readiness with which we admit the belief of a sentient and rational universe, existing on all sides of us, although unseen, or the reluctance we feel to admit any such supposition, will be affected by the notion enter- tained of the mode in which the mind occupies, and operates within, the animal organization ; and especially by our opinion concerning the functions of the brain, and of the nervous system. The hypothesis briefly stated in the third and fourth chapters of this volume, concern- OF ANOTHER LIFE. 207 ing the muscular power, and the limitation of perception in the organs of sense, is open, as the author is well aware, to objection on the ground of the commonly re- ceived theory of the generation of muscular motion, and of the office of the sensorium ; and he is aware too, that a full explanation of his own views on these subjects to do any justice to them, and to set them clear of appa- rent difficulties, would demand, not merely ample space, but an elaborate examination of the animal structure, such as might place the two theories on a ground of fair com- parison. But neither do the limits of the present essay admit of any such discussion, nor would it well comport with the general strain of the work ; nor indeed could it it easily be made intelligible to all readers. Neverthe- less a concise statement of his opinion seems almost ne- cessary to sustain the author's conjectures and assump- tions, in more than one or two instances. The brain is spoken of, as well by anatomists and physiologists, as by metaphysicians, as being not only the seat of the mind, and the organ of the intellectual operations, but as the emanating centre of those voli- tions which precede muscular motion, and as the recep- tacle of impressions from the several senses. It is within the brain, we are told, that the mind converses with the notices of the external world, conveyed to it by the nervous chords from the external organ of each setose ; and it is within the brain that the determination takes place to move the limbs in this or that direction ; which determination, when formed, flows down by the channel of the nerves to the particular muscles the agency of which is demanded to produce the required line or circuit of movement. Now it must be granted, in the first place, that in the 208 PHYSICALTHEORY above statement very much more is assumed than can be supported by any sort of proof; and therefore, very much of which is fairly open to question ; and in the se- cond place, that this same theory of sensation and mus- cular action, instead of its being the involuntary dictate of our consciousness, contradicts our impressions, and our natural suppositions; and therefore, is not entitled to our assent unless established by very satisfactory evidence. The author must not be understood as intending that our consciousness, whether mental or animal, ought to be received implicitly, as an indication of occult pro- cesses ; for there are several familiar instances in which it is unquestionably fallacious. Nevertheless some de- gree of regard should certainly be paid to those involun- tary impressions that arise from our organic sensations ; and these impressions are entitled to be considered as just, until proved to be untrue. Now, on the very ground of these spontaneous convictions, let it be granted that the brain is the seat and centre of all purely intellectual operations; the organ of memory, conception, imagi- nation, reasoning, and of moral sentiment ; excluding, perhaps, certain of the emotions, in relation to which our consciousness doesr not very decisively refer them to the brain. We leave, therefore, the brain in undisturbed posses- sion of its prescriptive honours, as the residence of the mind ; but the very reason of the belief that the higher faculties perform their part within the cranium, if allowed to influence also our opinion concerning sensation and muscular movement, would lead to a very different sup- position ; and assuredly it would never suggest the no- tion either of our despatching orders from the brain OF ANOTHER LIFE. down the spinal chord and crural nerve, to certain mus- cles of the leg ; or of our feeling the pinch of a tight shoe, not in the toe, but near to where we feel the pinch of a tight hat. Occult as is the principle of animal life, and difficult as are all questions relating to the connexion between the mind and the body, it yet does not appear by any means a hopeless endeavour to trace that principle a step further than at present it is known. The doing so in a sa- tisfactory manner, must involve both a patient and exact examination of the visible mechanism of the body, and a sagacious pursuit of every clue afforded by the innume- rable accidents and peculiarities which so often, in an unexpected manner, reveal the long hidden secrets of nature. Meantime different and opposite theories should be entertained, so that we may be in readiness to avail ourselves, at a moment, of any such fortunate indica- tiona. As for instance, let us take a glance at the nervous sys- tem, first with the supposition in view that it is the me- dium through which specific volitions are conveyed from the brain to the muscular mechanism. Now although it would be unwarrantable to affirm that the convey- ance of distinct volitions through a system of interlaced chords, such as we find the nerves of muscular motion to be, is absolutely impossible ; it is yet in the highest degree difficult to maintain our belief of any such con- veyance, while we trace the intricacies, and examine the actual arrangement, of these chords. Let the axillary plexus be spread out in its multiform combinations, and the anastomosing branches, and the subsidiary twigs of the leading chords be examined ; especially let the pe- 210 PHYSICAL THEORY culiar structure of the ganglia, as discovered by the aid of the microscope, be understood. Within the plexuses, and in the substance of the ganglia, the nbrillse, consti- tuting the contributory chords, are intermixed in the most intimate and intricate manner conceivable ; and the en- tire construction is such as would seem fitted, not for the transmission of volitions in a distinct manner, from the brain to the limb ; or for the return of sensations from the limb to the brain ; but for confounding effect- ively all such supposed transmissions. Scores of in- stances might be specified in which very remarkably, provision is made, as if for commingling and confusing the lines of communication between the brain and the extremities ; and it may boldly be affirmed that if the office of the nervous network were totally unknown, and unsuspected, the very last supposition that would be sug- gested by a view of its structure would be, that it is con- trived to convey particular volitions to particular mus- cles. If the scheme of the nerves be spread out, and com- pared with the scheme of the arteries, or of the veins, in a similar manner exposed, it appears that there is even more, in the former, of anastomosis, and more of involu- tion and intricacy, by plexus and gangila, and by retro- grade ramifications, than in the two latter. That is to say, in the former, more than in the latter, provision is made for the uninterrupted transmission of whatever is transmitted at large, to all parts of the extremities, and for its indiscriminate, or promiscuous conveyance. It is plainly a matter of secondary importance to the limbs whether they receive the requisite supply of blood through one trunk, or through another ; so that it does but come in sufficient quantity, and with sufficient force ; OF ANOTHER LIFE. 211 or whether the expended fluid be returned through one, or through another canal. And in like manner (and even more clearly) the main intention of nature in the arrangement of the nervous ramifications appears to be, the affording an unfailing supply of some necessary influence, or ether, to all parts of the muscular apparatus, by any means, and by all means ; and so that if one me- dium of conveyance should be accidentally compressed, the emanation may yet reach the parts by some circuit, not exposed to the same obstruction. We assume then that, as our consciousness informs us of no such process as that of the despatching of voli- tions to the muscles, so neither does the construction of the nervous system indicate its adaptation to a process of this kind ; but the contrary, and in the most decisive manner. But now let it be supposed (we here confine our at- tention to muscular motion) that the nervous system, connecting the brain and spinal process with the entire muscular apparatus, serves no other purpose than that of conveying, from the former to the latter, a copious efflux of (shall we say) galvanic power; which power the cerebral mass incessantly generates. We then, for simplification's sake, consider the muscles, those of the arm, for instance, as consisting only of flectors and de- flectors ; or we may imagine a single pair of antagonists, of which the one bends, and the other extends the limb. On our present supposition then, the brain, by the me- dium of the brachial nerves, supplies both these muscles, evenly and perpetually, with the contractile excitement, whatever it may be, which shall enable each, when called upon, to become dense and tumid in the requisite degree. 212 PHYSICAL THEORY What then is volition, but the immediate mental in- fluence, present in the arm, and determining it to bend or to straighten ? The mind is not, as we suppose, the prisoner of the attic story ; but is the occupant at large, of the entire animal organization, acting in each part of the structure according to the purpose of each : in the arm and leg, moving hither or thither, by its inherent power over matter; in the skin, in the eye, the ear, the tongue, the nasal membrane, receiving immediately the impressions of external objects, by its inherent sus- ceptibility of the properties of matter ; and, let it be granted, within the cranium, carrying on the higher pro- cesses of thought. The supposition above stated concerning muscular motion requires only an adaptation of terms in order to apply it to sensation. Instead, for example, of assuming that the picture falling on the retina is transmitted, in some inconceivable manner, by the optic nerve to the sensorium, and that there, undisturbed and unmixed, it delivers itself to the percipient organ, we imagine that the optic nerve supplies the retina with a copious and constant stream of the exciting influence let it be gal- vanism, and that the mind, upon the very bed of the nerve, and where the actual picture, in all its vivid colours rests, converses with it, and that it does so be- cause it is originally capable of conversing with light and colours; although, while lodged in the animal body, it is restricted from holding any such converse, except upon the expansion of the optic nerve. We must go however a step further, and inquire what probably may be the use, or whence is the necessity of the (galvanic) influence generated in the brain, and OF ANOTHER LIFE. 213 thence conveyed to the muscles and the organs of sense. Now our theory involves the supposition that the inhe- rent percipient faculty of the mind (and the same of its mechanical power) is so imprisoned within the solid substance of the animal body as to be totally screened from impressions of the external world, except just so far as this solid substance may be vehemently stimu- lated, commoved, and rendered impressible by the pow- erful action of the (galvanic) fluid. The very same ir- resistible agent which compels earths to yield their me- tallic bases, and which decomposes what nothing else can move, brings the animal fibre, and the reticular ex- pansions of the nerves into a state of excitability, such as enables them to correspond to the vibrations of light, or of sound, or to the chemical properties of sapid or odor- iferous bodies. All that the mind needs for sensation is that the external material vibration, as of light, sound, &c. should be responded to by an internal vibration, or commotion, of the animal substance : but this de- mands a highly charged (galvanic) condition of the organ of sense. It is as if a stretched wire, which faintly corresponds to a musical note, might be made to do so more delicately and more forcibly, by making it the channel of a galvanic current. It is not that the MIND needs this excitement ; but the fleshy organ needs it, in order to its admitting the external vibratory im- pression. The tremendous (voltaic) apparatus which fills the cranium has relation, as we now suppose, to the inert- ness and the inelasticity of the animal body ; and if the mind were imagined to be corporeally combined with a highly elastic fluid, or an ether susceptible of the most delicate vibrations, there would then be no more occa- 19 214 PHYSICAL THEORY sion for the galvanic stimulus : a mind thus embodied would need no brain, no nerves, no organs of sense, and no contractile fibres. The well known effect of galvanism upon the limbs of a dead animal may, at first, appear not to comport with the theory we are now propounding ; for in these in- stances muscular motion, which we attribute to the di- rective influence of the mind, resident in the limb, is seen to be produced not by mind, but by the electric stream. We however gather a direct confirmation of our conjec- ture, from these very facts ; which indeed, on due con- sideration, can hardly, if at all, be made to consist with the common supposition of the transmission of volitions from the brain to the muscles, through the nerves. If the office of the nerves is to transmit the will of the mind, distinctively, to the muscles, we see them, in the case of a separated limb, transmitting something very different from such volitions namely, a galvanic stream ; and yet although the cause is totally unlike, the effect is the same as if a volition had been conveyed. But upon our present supposition, what happens in applying the galvanic wire to the sciatic nerve of a frog, is precisely what we should expect to happen. That is to say, the nerve, in this case, conveys the very same element or energy which it has been wont to convey during the life of the animal : this exciting agent, namely, the galvanic fluid, is instantaneously suffused through the whole limb, and is distributed, in its accustomed pro- portions, to the entire systefm of muscles. But inasmuch as the mind of the animal has been withdrawn from those muscles, which, while it was present, either retained them all at rest, or employed one set of them at pleasure, this sudden chemical excitement, acting simultaneously, OF ANOTHER LIFE. 215 and without direction, upon all, nothing else can take place but that the largest and the most powerful muscle of the lirnb should carry it against the smaller and the feebler; and thus, in the instance of the frog, the limb is forcibly projected from the glass that had contained it. Its leap is the frog's most powerful muscular action ; and therefore the limb, stimulated to action without the mind leaps. An analogous effect, as we believe, follows in all cases of the application of galvanism to bodies recently dead: thus the rabbit jumps, and the human counte- nance is frightfully contorted, in consequence of the con- traction of the stronger muscles of the face. If the weaker set of muscles could, in this artificial manner, be acted upon, placid and pleasing expressions would no doubt be produced. In the case of convulsive af- fections of the face, in the living body, the distortion arises plainly from this very cause, namely, that there is a suffused muscular excitement, not directed by the mind, and therefore taking effect upon all the stronger muscles ; while the weaker, instead of being held in that state of easy counterpoise which the mind, when not dis- turbed, maintains, yield to an unnatural violence ; and therefore do not fill out the general contour as they do when under the command of the will, but give way with a tremulous resistance. That which happens among the muscles when their contractility is stimulated, apart from the control of the mind, may be rendered familiarly intelligible by consid- ering what takes place when a mast or balk, fixed per- pendicularly, is supported in three directions by chords, one of these chords being five times the size of the other two together. Then, if the three are equally PHYSICAL THEORY moistened by a sudden shower, the mast is immediately drawn from the upright, by the large rope ; while the two smaller, its antagonists, either loosen their attach- ments, or are snapped. This mechanical effect differs little in its proximate cause from what is observed in cases of epileptic fits, locked jaw, and mortal convul- sions ; for the directive and commanding influence of the mind being diverted, or withdrawn, while the con- tractile galvanic stimulus continues to flow from the brain to the extremities, it inevitably happens that, in each set of antagonists, the more bulky, or what is equiv- alent, the more excitable muscles, prevail over their feebler partners ; and a rigid contraction is the conse- quence.* Thus the fingers are indented into the palms, and the temporal and masseter muscles, the natural power of which vastly exceeds that of the digastricus and platysma myoides, hold the lower jaw, as if iron bound, in contact with the upper. But when the mental disturbance is remedied, and the voluntary principle re- turns to its seat and office, then this same force of the temporal and masseter muscles, equal to 500 Ibs. weight, and by no means counteracted by an equal force in the antagonists, is held in equilibrio, and in fact is so deli- cately balanced by the mental authority, as not only to act its part with precision in the mechanical operation of mastication, but to play in with the exquisite movements that govern the modulations of the voice. The part * Spasmodic or convulsive muscular contractions arise, as we suppose, from the withdrawment of the mind ; while the chemical stimulus continues to flow to the parts affected. On the contrary, paralytic distortions we attribute to a partial suppression of the ex- citement furnished by the brain : partial, and just enough to allow the larger and stronger muscles to act. OF ANOTHER LIFE. 217 performed by the temporal and masseter muscles, in speaking and singing, might be compared to the service rendered by a powerful and well-trained horse, required to pull within the sixteenth of an inch, and in combina- tion too with the power of a dog or of a child : his whole force is always in readiness ; but it is so under control as to reach the precise limit required, and yet not to surpass it. All the facts connected with the ascertained difference between the voluntary and involuntary muscles, readily fall in with the theory that the function of the brain, in relation to the muscular system, does not consist in send- ing forth volitions ; but simply in maintaining a copious supply of contractile excitement (whether galvanic or not) that the nerves convey this chemical energy, and disperse it promiscuously, among the muscles, and that the actual employment of this force rests with the mind, present, not in the cranium, but in the limb. A muscle, the antagonist of which is another muscle, comes necessarily within the control of the voluntary principle ; for nothing else can command it ; and if this be withdrawn, a spasmodic contraction of the stronger of the two is the consequence. But if the antagonist force be merely mechanical, as it is in the heart, the sto- mach, and the intestines, there will take place an oscil- lation or alternation between the two unlike powers . that is to say, the supply of excitement from the brain being limitted in quantity, or coming only at a given rate, it will be expended in overcoming the mechanical force, which, for a moment, gains upon it ; but during the interval of relaxation, the galvanic excitement has again accumu- lated, and in its turn overpowers the mechanical resist- ance, and muscular contraction ensues. 19* 218 PHYSICAL THEORY A too long continued exertion of the voluntary mus- cles produces a painful sense of the overthrow of the natural equipoise of the powers. That is to say, the mind has been demanding motion at a greater rate than that at which the brain, in its ordinary state, can furnish the contractile chemical excitement; and the limb, draw- ing this pabulum, as it can, from the nerves of sensation, and from the surface, a sense of pain follows : at the same time the animal spirits fail. But it is manifest that the mind, as seated in the brain, has a power of rousing it to an extraordinary effort, so as to develope a more than usual amount of the electric element. Thus a powerful motive for continued exertion, as when a man, to save his life, is running from his enemy, disperses for a time the sense of fatigue. Nevertheless this power of extra- ordinary galvanic developement has its limits ; and the brain indicates afterwards, the violence which it has sub- mitted to, arid refuses, for a while, to furnish even its or- dinary quantum of chemical power. The functions of the brain, in relation to the INTEL- LECTUAL FACULTIES, is a subject far too difficult and copious to be entered upon in this place ; nor is it in fact so nearly connected with our proper subject as is the theory of sensation and muscular motion. In reference to these, we cannot allow it to be hopeless that some satisfactory conclusion should be arrived at. The proper path of experiment, it would not be very difficult to mark out ; and there are some means of bringing the question to the test of facts which, as the author believes, could hardly fail to decide it. Let it be for a moment granted that the function of the brain, in relation to sensation and muscular motion, is simply chemical, and has respect to OF ANOTHER LIFE. 219 the inertness of the animal substance, and to its low de- gree of elasticity; and then the way will be open for readily conceiving of other species of corporeity im- palpable, and invisible ; but not less sensitive, or less potent, than is animal corporeity ; on the contrary, more so. If the functions of the brain be only conditionally ne- cessary, in relation to sensation and motion, we may easi- ly believe that they are only conditionally necessary in relation to the more purely intellectual operations ; or in other words, that there need be no voltaic pile where the material vehicle of the mind is in itself in a high degree elastic, and responsive to every kind of vibration. Let it only be supposed that there is about us a fluid, the counterpart of that ether, the vibrations of which give us the sensation of light a fluid in an equal degree capable of receiving and of transmitting undulations incalculably minute and rapid. Mind amalgamated with such a fluid, might be immediately conversant with all the properties of matter ; and even much more intimately and exten- sively conversant with them than it can while it depends for its sensibility upon the constancy and amount of the galvanic element. This imperfect statement of a conjecture concerning the office of the brain and nerves, although it may seem a digression from the immediate subject of the present chapter, is not really so, since it opens the way for our conceiving of what, on the ground of scriptual evidence, we have reason to think is real namely, the repletion of the visible universe with invisible corporeal beings ; and it may incline us the more readily to admit the belief that the creation, beside its sentient orders, connected with animal organization, abounds with tribes, sentient 220 PHYSICAL THEORY and rational, whose corporeity is impalpable and invisible, and who are tenants of what, in our accommodated sense, may be called, a quintessence. These invisible orders, beside the impulse of their in- stincts and their interests, may, by physical necessity, and perhaps by their liability to gravitation (however at- tenuated their substance ) be gathered around the solar and planetary bodies ; so that each world may have its own ethereal nations, as well as its terrestrial, or rather its animal species : each planet, as well as our own, may have its stfoupavioi, its gViysioi, and its In collating these speculations with the general tenor and the particular testimony of the scriptures, it maybe well to keep in mind a principle which seems pretty well sustained That the inspired writers always hold close to mundane affairs, and intend to speak only of the his- tory and destinies of the families of earth ; seldom, if ever, opening to us a wider prospect. On the strength of this principle, we may then assume the probability that the spiritual beings, good and evil, spoken of in the scrip- tures, are all, or most of them, of mundane origin ; and although some may now move in a wider circle, that they have sprung from this soil. Are there reasons for sup- posing that the solid materials of our planet have served purposes in a period anterior to the birth of the human family? Such a belief we do not regard as contradictory to any scriptural doctrine ; or to the Mosaic history of the creation. But if so, these pre-adamic families, like the children of Adam, may have acquitted themselves vari- ously during their term of animal existence, some having broken their allegiance to the Supreme Power, while others have preserved virtue and loyalty. Yet both may OF ANOTHER LIFE. 221 ( whether constantly or not ) attach to the scene of their early history, and mingle themselves with the destinies of their successors. Hence the conflicts and the commo- tions, the beneficent agencies, and the malignant influ- ences, to which the inspired writers are ever and again making allusion. But this entire subject, considered as a matter of biblical inquiry, urgently demands a new in- vestigation, under the guidance of those careful and yet free principles of interpretation which have lately been coming into operation. This however, in the meantime, may be said, that, should a rational and laborious exami- nation of the scriptural evidence relating to invisible orders, lead to a revival of the belief of Christians, and to the refreshment of their fading impressions fading be- cause in their original state superstitious and exaggerat- ed, should this take place in connexion with a better understood theory of intellectual existence, very impor- tant consequences might be the result ; and all religious minds, awakened to a sense of the simple reality of the spiritual dangers we are exposed to, as tenants of this haunted planet, would be impelled, with undiverted anx- iety, to seek safety where always it is to be found. But we must return upon our path for a moment, and briefly state the bearing of this branch of our general theory upon the notions we may entertain concerning the condition of the human soul upon the dissolution of the animal structure ; and concerning the state of that vast congregation which has been swelling with its thousands daily, during the course of nearly sixty centuries. The belief of the survivance of the living principle and consciousness, after the dissolution of the animal organi- zation, the author, for his own part, would always derive PHYSICAL THEORY from those moral and religious considerations, and from that explicit divine testimony which appeal to our highest and purest sentiments. As to the pretended demonstra- tion of immortality, drawn from the assumed simplicity and indestructibility of the soul, as an immaterial sub- stance, they appear either altogether inconclusive, or if conclusive, then such as must be admitted to apply, with scarcely diminished force, to all sentient orders ; and it must be granted that whatever has felt, and has acted spontaneously, must live again and for ever. We have the best reasons for the confident expectation of another life; nor are in any need to fortify our convictions by ar- guments which, if valid, prove immensely more than we can desire to see established, or could persuade ourselves to think in any degree probable. There is not in the structure, or the instincts, or the tendencies of any one of the inferior animal species, the faintest indication of a renewal of life, after the extinc- tion of the vital principle. But it is altogether otherwise with man ; and we believe him immortal, not because, as it is pretended, thought and consciousness cannot be an- nihilated ; but because the intellectual and moral struc- tures imply an after stage of expansion. This then, on higher grounds, granted as certain, that man is to survive his animal body, it is not difficult, in following out the several principles of our physical theo- ry of another life, to conceive of an instantaneous tran- sition of the conscious principle the LIFE, from the animal body to a body impalpable and invisible; and yet not less alive to the material world, but probably more so. The evidence of the inspired writings apart, it might easi- ly be supposed that the human mind, at death, immediate- ly enters upon its highest and ultimate stage of spiritual OF ANOTHER LIFE. 223 corporeity. But we are not at liberty to assume so much as this if the doctrine of the New Testament on this sub- ject be rightly understood, for it directs us to look for- ward to a future and distant epoch, as the destined day in which human nature is to put on corporeal incorruptibili- ty ; and we are also taught to think of the state of souls, as a state, not of unconsciousness indeed, but of com- parative inaction, or suspended energy : it is, so far as we may gather its conditions from the scattered intima- tions of scripture, a transition state, during the continu- ance of which the passive faculties of our nature, rather than the active, are awake ; and throughout which, pro- bably, those emotions of the moral nature that have been overborne, or held in abeyance, by the urgent impulses of animal life, shall take their free course, and reach their height, as fixed habits of the mind. On this supposition then, if it ought to be called a sup- position, which rests with little ambiguity upon scriptural evidence, it is plain that a more attenuated corporeity may be held to belong to the intermediate and transition state of human nature, than shall befit its ultimate condi- tion of full energy and activity. Powers latent will not need a structure which has relation to the exertion of powers upon an' exterior world. The chrysalis period of the soul may be marked by the destitution of all the in- struments of active life, corporeal and mental. And this state of inaction may probably be also a state of seclu- sion, involving perhaps, an unconsciousness of the pas- sage of time. Suggestions such as these should be made no other use of than that of preparing us to catch, at all points, the evanescent indications of the inspired writers, which, in relation to the spiritual and unseen world, is so given as 224 PHYSICAL THEORY entirely to escape the notice of those who listlessly read what they have been reading from childhood, under the guidance of notions accidentally formed. It is not until the mind has been quickened by an intelligent curiosity, and has obtained also more than one clue to inquiry, by the aid of hypothesis, that the actual extent to which the un- seen world is opened to us in the scriptures, is suspected or understood. Let an hypothesis be utterly at variance with truth, it will yet have rendered us an important ser- vice and a legitimate service, if it shall have prompted us to pursue, assiduously, and eagerly, any path of bibli- cal inquiry. It is on this very ground that the author would seek an apology for advancing the several conjec- tures that have found a place in these pages. A condition of suspended powers, and of destitution, such as we now attribute to the human soul, through its intermediate period, may very naturally be imagined to involve a vague, or perhaps a strong and definite, tenden- cy, or appetency toward the open world of power and ac- tion : there may be a yearning after the lost corporeity, or after the expected corporeity : there may be a pres- sing on toward the frequented walks of active existence. Now let it be just imagined that, as almost all natural prin- ciples and modes of life are open to some degree of irreg- ularity, and admit exceptive cases, so this pressure of the vast community of the dead, toward the precincts of life, may, in certain cases, actually break the boundaries that hem in the ethereal crowds, and that thus, as if by acci- dent and trespass, the dead may in single instances in- fringe upon the ground of common corporeal life. At least let indulgence be given to the opinion that those almost universal superstitions which, in every age OP ANOTHER LIFE. 225 and nation, have implied the fact of occasional interfer- ences of the dead with the living, ought not to be sum- marily dismissed as a mere folly of the vulgar, utterly unreal, until our knowledge of the spiritual world is so complete as shall entitle us to affirm that no such inter- ferences can, in the nature of things, ever have taken place. The supposition of there being a universal per- suasion, totally groundless, not only in its form and ad- juncts, but in its substance, does violence to the principles of human reasoning, and clearly is of dangerous conse- quence. An absolute skepticism on this subject, more- over, can be maintained only by the aid of Hume's often refuted sophism That no testimony can be held suffi- cient to establish an alleged fact, at variance with com- mon experience ; for it must not be denied that some few instances of the sort alluded to, rest upon testimony in itself thoroughly unimpeachable ; nor is the import of the evidence in these cases at all touched by the now well understood doctrine concerning spectral illusions, as re- sulting from a diseased condition of the brain. There is a species of disbelief, flattering indeed to vulgar intel- lectual arrogance, but out of harmony with the spirit and the admitted rules of modern philosophy. Whether such and such alleged facts happen to come to us mingled with gross popular errors, or not, is of little importance in de- termining the degree of attention they may deserve : one question only is to be considered, namely Is the evidence that sustains them in any degree substantial ? Nor in considering questions of this sort ought we to listen for a moment to those frequent, but impertinent questions, that are brought forward with the view of su- perseding the inquiry ; such for example, as these What good end is answered by the alleged extra natural 20 226 PHYSICAL THEORY occurrences ? or, Is it worthy of the Supreme Wisdom to permit them ? and so forth. The question is a ques- tion first, of testimony, to be judged of on the establish- ed principles of evidence ; and then of physiology ; not of theology, or of morals. Some few human beings are wont to walk in their sleep, and during the continuance of profound slumber perform, with precision and safety, the offices of common life, and return to their beds, and yet are totally unconscious, when they awake, of what they have done. Now in considering this, or any such extraordinary class of facts, our business is, in the first place, to obtain a number of instances, supported by the distinct and unimpeachable testimony of intelligent wit- nesses ; and then, being thus in possession of the facts, to adjust them, so far as we can, to other parts of our philosophy of human nature. Shall we allow an objec- tor to put a check to our scientific curiosity, on the sub- ject, for instance, of somnambulism, by saying, " Scores of these accounts have turned out to be exaggerated, or totally untrue :" or, " This walking in the sleep ought not to be thought possible, or as likely to be permitted by the Benevolent Guardian of human welfare ?" Almost all instances of alleged supernatural APPEAR- ANCES may easily be disposed of, either on the ground of the fears and superstitious impressions of the parties reporting them ; or on that of the now well understood diseased action of the nervous system, which, in certain conditions, generates visual illusions of the most distinct kind. But no such explanation will meet the many in- stances, thoroughly well attested, in which the death of a relative, at a distance, has been conveyed, in all its circumstances, to persons during sleep ; nor again to those instances in which some special information, bu- OF ANOTHER LIFE. 227 ried in the bosoms of the dead, has been imparted, in sleep, to the living. In these cases the singularity of the facts conveyed, and the impossibility of their coming through any ordinary channel, ought, on every principle of philosophy, and of evidence, to be admitted as fur- nishing proper proof of an invisible interference. The time will come when, in consequence of the total dis- sipation of popular superstitions, and the removal too of the prejudice which makes us ashamed of seeming to believe in company with the vulgar, or to believe at the prompting of fear it will be seen that facts of this class ought to engage the attention of physiologists, and when they will be consigned to their place in our systems of the philosophy of human nature. Notwithstanding pre- judices of all sorts vulgar and philosophic, facts of whatever class, and of whatever tendency, will at length receive their due regard, as the materials of science ; and the era may be predicted in which a complete re- action shall take its course, and the true principles of reasoning be made to embrace a vastly wider field than that which may be measured by the human hand and eye. A reaction of this kind is likely to be set in pro- gress, or to be accelerated, by the making some bold conjectural excursions beyond the range of animal sen- sation j the consequence of which may be not indeed the adoption of any of those particular conjectures, as true ; but the concentration of philosophic minds upon the facts and the evidence, that actually come within our range of observation. Without entering upon the field of biblical criticism, which the author, in this essay, purposely avoids, it would not be possible to bring, satisfactorily, into rela- 228 PHYSICAL THEORY tion with our theory, the scripture testimony concerning invisible orders. There is however a particular branch of that testimony to which allusion may be made ; name- ly, that which concerns dsemoniacal possession. Not able in this place to engage in the argument as a biblical question, the author assumes, what he fully believes may be made good, that the gospel narratives, in these instances, are of a kind not to be disposed of by the hy- pothesis of accommodation ; but are of an historical complexion, such as that if they are rejected as untrue, we are bound to withdraw our confidence altogether from the reporters, as competent and trustworthy wit- nesses of facts. Taking it then for granted that these narratives act- ually involve what they seem to involve, and that they imply something totally different from all cases of lunacy, madness, or delirium, we then come into possession of several highly significant facts, concerning a species or order of mundane beings, whom, unless there be evi- dence to that effect, we are not to identify with the human race, and whom we are taught, by the careful phraseology of the inspired writers, not to confound with the fallen angelic orders the colleagues and compan- ions of Satan. The leading ideas suggested by these narratives are such as the following, and they comport well with the conjectures we have entertained in the preceding pages. First, there is the familiar and ready intermixture of invisible and impalpable beings, with human society ; so that, within any given boundary, there may be corpo- really present, the human crowd, and the extra-human crowd ; and the latter as naturally and simply present, as the former; the latter as vividly conscious of the Off TEfi OTITIESIT OP ANOTHER LI F^fc. j^ 229 AV > material world as the former, and prompted by interests, and passions, by desires, and fears. Secondly, it is to be noticed that these beings had not, as it seems, the physical power to make them- selves heard, or to give any mechanical evidence of their presence, except while occupying, or invading, the ani- mal corporeity of another species, namely the human. Thirdly, these possessions give evidence of a principle we have above conjecturally spoken of, namely, the yearning, or appetency of invisible and ethereal natures towards animal organization. It would seem as if, du- ring that era in the history of man in which such irregu- larities were permitted, that the spiritual species eagerly caught at every opportunity of tenanting the terrestrial species. In the fourth place, we cannot but note, what is not obscure in its expression, however obscure it may be in its import, namely, the horror of these daemons at the thought of being consigned to the nether cavern, or abyss. Lastly, the highly significant effect of the add- ing of mind to mind, within one and the same body, is to be especially noticed. This temporary compounding of intelligences, which (were it allowable on so unusual an occasion to coin a term) might be called, a state of men- tal superentity, discovers itself by multiplying the me- chanical force of the muscular system ; and as it seems, in some proportion to the actual numbers of the foreign minds. The inherent power of mind over matter, to generate motion, was, in these instances, we might al- most say, mathematically exhibited, by showing the ac- cumulated force of several minds, acting as in a focus, upon a single muscular mechanism. Whoever finds himself obliged, by the principles of sound criticism and interpretation, to consider the gospel 20* 230 PHYSICAL THEORY narratives of dsemoniacal possessions as simply true, will find that these extraordinary instances, differing in every sense from the satanic seductive influence else- where affirmed in scripture, involve and imply every principle that has been assumed in the conjectures pro- pounded in the present chapter. We should all, assur- edly, admit that one well attested and distinctly reported instance of the presence and intelligent agency of an invisible being, would be enough to carry the question of an invisible economy, pervading the visible universe. Are then the gospel narratives well attested, and are the circumstances simply and distinctly reported? If so, they furnish us with all we want for the determination of the general question. The reader will bear in mind the important distinction, already adverted to, between the satanic influence, and the dsemoniacal possessions ; the one being purely moral and spiritual, and applying also universally to human nature, and being in no case, and in no sense, naturally sensible, or visible, or distinguishable from the ordinary workings of the moral faculties. The other on the con- trary was, in an equally exclusive sense, purely physical, or natural, and always made itself known by visible and palpable effects, and was confined to individuals, and came within the range of history, as matter of fact, in the most ordinary sense of the phrase. Happily we have reason to conclude that human nature is no longer liable to the ruffian violence of an impure and reprobate ethereal race ; but alas ! we have the strongest reasons for believing that men, universally, and in every age, are exposed to silent malignant seductions, which in- deed never trench upon the natural liberty of the mind, much less infringe that of the body ; but which too often, OF ANOTHER LIFE. 231 like the influence of profligate companions, prevails over the better principles of our nature. In dismissing our first conjecture, concerning the visible universe, considered as the abode of intelligent orders, we lightly dealt with it, as a conjecture merely, which might be entertained or rejected, at pleasure. But we are not free to treat with equal unconcern the general principles involved in this our second hypothesis ; for although every thing adjunctive or special in our speculations maybe unreal, these principles, if adjudged to be false, are such as must carry with them a large portion of our Christian faith ; and the surrender of them would leave us in possession of only the bare skeleton of religious belief. 232 P H Y S I C A L T H E O R Y CHAPTER XYIII. THE THIRD CONJECTURE. IN our first conjecture it was supposed that room might be made for the several ranks of being whether animal or spiritual, within the bounds, and upon the stage of the visible universe. The second, involved the belief of an invisible economy, suffused throughout the visible creation, and constituting that higher system toward which the rational orders of the lower and visible world are tending. But our third conjecture embraces the remote revolutions of Time, and supposes (without however denying, what we are not at liberty to deny, namely, the reality of an unseen spiritual economy) that the visible universe, replete every where with various forms of animal life, is to fill one period only in the great history of the moral system, and that it is destined, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to disappear, and to return to its nihility, giving place to new elements, and to new and higher expressions of omnipotence and in- telligence. For this, our third conjecture, it would be difficult to find a form of expression more distinct, than that sup- plied by certain well known passages of scripture, which, whether to be understood literally, or in a tropical sense only, yet may well serve to convey our present idea of an instantaneous vanishing of one form of the creation, and the substitution of another ; as thus " The heav- , OF ANOTHER LIFE. ens and the earth they shall perish ; all of them shall wax old like a garment ; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed." " And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, arid as a falling fig from the fig-tree." " Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath, for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment." " Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind ; and the new heavens and the new earth shall remain before me, saith the Lord." " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." " The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, in the which the heav- ens shall pass away with a great noise ; nevertheless, we look for a new heavens, and a new earth." " And from the face of Him that sat on the throne the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them." " Behold, I create all things new !" Now it may seem that, with predictions such as these before us, there can be no room to speak conjtcturally of the destiny of the material universe, or of the new creation ; and an explanation may properly be demanded of the sense in which that is treated of as uncertain, which appears to be distinctly affirmed in so many places of scripture. Let it then, in the first place, be observed, that as the author, in the present essay, abstains entirely from biblical interpretation, he is not entitled to under- stand the passages quoted above, in a literal and uni- versal sense, apart from that sort of inquiry concerning the meaning of phrases, and the import of the context, 234 PHYSICAL THEORY which may fully justify the belief that they ought so to be understood. The theologian, perhaps, would refuse assent to a literal and unrestricted interpretation of these predictions, and would affirm that they are of spiritual import only, or are applicable simply to national and ec- clesiastical revolutions. Then in the second place it must be remembered that, supposing the literal and universal import of these passages were granted to us by the biblical interpreter, yet, in following out our conceptions, even a single step beyond a bare affirmation of the fact, we tread upon uncertain ground, that is to say, upon the ground of ana- logical reasoning, not upon that of scripture testimony ; and nothing can be much more important than always to observe the broad distinction between those mere facts, which are matters of religious persuasion, and those enlargements of such facts which may be the fruit of philosophical speculation. This distinction forgotten or contemned, and then philosophical speculation be- comes dangerous and pernicious ; remembered and respected, it may yield us a service not to be spurned. Rejecting, as we must, every modification of the atheistic doctrine concerning the eternity of the material universe, or its inherent independence, and on the con- trary, viewing it as nothing more than the product of the creative will and power, existing, while it exists, only as a means to an end beyond itself, we then gain a position whence with ease we may contemplate this vast and goodly framework, permanent as it seems, as standing only during pleasure, and as dissoluble, in any moment, when its uses are fulfilled. The material universe has no indefeasible rights has no inherent claim to be OFANOTHERLIFE. 235 perpetuated. Nothing abstract would be compromised by its return to nihility. If it be a stage of life to innu- merable species, another stage of life may come in its room ; or if an admirable exhibition of the divine power, wisdom, and goodness, those same attributes may shine forth with still more clearness, on the fields of the new creation. But our natural impressions, or physical prejudices, offer some resistance to the supposition of the utter and instantaneous dissipation of the solid masses of the ma- terial system ; and it is only by doing a sort of violence to the mind, that such an idea is admitted. And yet those who distinctly entertain the belief of the creation of matter out of nothing, ought not to think the return of this same matter to its nothingness, incredible. We say the return of matter to its nothingness ought not to be regarded as a paradox, even when matter is conceived of according to our ordinary notions of it, which impute to its particles, or ultimate atoms, a real, impenetrable, and indivisible, and insoluble solidity. For, in whatever manner this solidity sprang from the divine will, it cannot be greater than the will whence it sprang ; nor possess any principle of permanence not dependant upon that will. It is not to be admitted that God has made any thing which, once existing, exists like himself, necessa- rily and eternally. We do not therefore hold it to be at all requisite, with the view of making way for our present conjecture, to undermine (if we might so speak) the reality of the ma- terial world. Let it be as real and solid as it may, it is no more than the product of omnipotence, and possesses no permanence, irrespectively of omnipotence, con- stantly in act to sustain it. And assuredly we should 236 PHYSICAL THEORY not endeavour to shake the stability of the visible and palpable universe by the aid of the metaphysical hypoth- esis or demonstration, which denies its reality, and which allows nothing to exist actually, or even possibly, but Mind. Metaphysical skepticism as well as material skepti- cism, renounced, and the premises laid down, that the material world, conceived of according to our natural impressions, as solid and (relatively) indestructible, ought yet to be regarded as dissoluble every moment, by the sovereign word of the Creator; this admitted, it may yet be not altogether useless to analyse a little our notions of matter, and to follow them so far as may serve to show that a genuine belief in the reality of the external world may consist with more than one hypoth- esis concerning its occult constitution. Between the idealism of Berkeley, and the physical theory of Boscovich, there is no real connexion, or af- finity ; although, popularly, the two systems may seem to amount to the same thing. The former is as purely metaphysical, as the latter is simply physical : the one is a mere adjustment of abstract notions ; the latter a statement of assumed facts, supported by reasons and evidence proper to a scientific argument ; and if the one hypothesis, as well as the other, leaves every thing where it found it, so far as our concernment with the external world is involved, yet the latter may actually promote the sciences to which it stands related ; while the former is, in every sense, a barren speculation. In propounding his conjectures concerning the occult constitution of matter, the author would deem it an in- excusable omission not to have alluded to the " Theoria Philosophise Naturalis," of Boscovich; and yet in doing OF ANOTHER LIFE. 237 so, he must not be understood either as entirely adopt- ing the principles of that ingenious writer, or as pre- tending to interpret his system. In fact, notions similar to those so ably maintained by Boscovich, can hardly have failed to present themselves to all minds accus- tomed to pursue abstruse speculations ; and every such mind will give to them a modification of its own. Our acquaintance with matter, as every one knows, is nothing more than an acquaintance with its properties; or rather with those of its powers which affect our senses. But these properties of matter resolve them- selves into so many species of motion emanative, or vibratory, and the motion implied in chemical combi- nation. The resistance offered to the touch by solid bodies may seem an exception to this statement ; but it is not so in fact : for the resistance of a solid surface is nothing but a propulsion operating within the minute sphere of that atomic force, which prevents the actual or mathematical contact of bodies. We know solid bodies therefore, only by the rebound, which prohibits approximation within a certain limit. It is then a species of motion that conveys to us the idea of solidity. In other words, for sustaining all the phenomena of the material world, mechanical and chemical, we need suppose nothing more than an infinite congeries of math- ematical points of attraction and repulsion attraction and repulsion of several kinds. This supposition fully answers all the purposes that are answered by the notion of hard indivisible atoms. That which is superadded to the idea of a centre of attraction and repulsion, in order to bring it up to the notion of a solid atom, adds absolutely nothing serviceable to the idea, or perhaps 21 233 PHYSICAL THEORY intelligible; and is altogether superfluous. The hard ultimate atom does nothing which the mathematical centre will not do. But these infinite centres are only starting points of motion motion in several directions, or motion of several species. It only remains then to bring this idea of the material world into connexion with the principle that motion, in all cases, originates from mind ; or in other words, is the effect of will ; either the Supreme will, or the will of created minds. Motion is either constant and uniform, obeying what we call a law, or it is incidental. The visi- ble and palpable world then, according to this theory, is MOTION, constant and uniform, emanating from infinite centres, and springing, during every instant of its contin- uance, from the Creative Energy. The instantaneous cessation of this energy, or its reaching its close, is therefore, abstractedly, quite as easily conceived of as is its continuance ; and whether, in the next instant, it shall continue, or shall cease, whether the material universe shall stand, or shall vanish, is an alter- native of which, irrespective of other reasons, the one member may be taken as easily as the other : just as the moving of the hand, or the not moving it, in the next mo- ment, depends upon nothing but our volition. The an- nihilation of the solid spheres the planets, and the suns, that occupy the celestial spaces, would not be an act of irresistible force, crushing that which resists com- pression, or dissipating and reducing to an ether that which firmly coheres ; but it would be the non-exertion, in the next instant, of a power which has been exerted in this instant : it would be, not a destruction, but a rest ; not a crash and ruin, but a pause. OF ANOTHER LIFE. 239 Yet as we have already said, the supposition of the in- stantaneous vanishing of the present material universe, is not at all dependent upon the theory which supposes matter to be constituted of several species of motion, springing constantly from an infinitude of points. And indeed, dismissing this theory, the destiny of the celes- tial mechanism might be inferred, with some degree of probability, from the data of facts now generally admitted. Thus, for example, if an ether, a resisting medium is diffused through space, a medium which, rare as it may be, is dense enough to deduct something in each revolu- tion, from the onward force of comets, and so to accelerate their revolutions, and to dimish their orbits, the same re- tarding, yet accelerating power, must be in operation also upon the planets : so that the entire system is winding wp, and is slowly in progress toward that consummation which the inspired writers speak of as a " rolling up the heavens like a scroll." If such be the actual and inevitable ten- dency of the planetary economy, we may suppose that the dire catastrophe will be anticipated by an instantaneous changing of the things that are "seen and temporal, "and an introducing of the things that are " not seen and eternal." In connexion with our present conjecture we ought to consider what is that all-pervading principle which is the characteristic of the present material system ; or at least of so much of it as comes within our means of know- ledge and it is this, namely, That the constitution of nature includes the collision of unlike and unequal forces, so acting one upon another, as that the whole can sub- sist and preserve its form only by running round a per- petual circle of combination and decomposition, of or- ganization and dissolution. In no department of nature, within our observation, is there, or can there be, a state 240 PHYSICAL THEORY of absolute rest ; for those elements which have reached a condition of repose, by perfect combination, and which, left to themselves, might enjoy that repose, are inces- santly acted upon by other elements, which, though they by themselves might also rest, cannot rest in juxta posi- tion with any compound, but must decompose it. Thus it is that the most solid masses are giving way, slowly perhaps, to decomposition, or to a change of chemical form ; while the less solid, or the more exposed masses, are rapidly running the round of their solid, fluid, and gaseous states ; yielding up their, constituents, to be consorted in some totally different manner. And thus too, the powers of life, vegetable and animal, which, within so many thousand fixed types, are perpetually gathering to themselves the crude elements, are also, without a moment's pause, passing on toward their stage of decay and dissolution. The balance offerees, in the material world, is of that kind which can be perpetuated only by incessant revolutions and transitions ; as we keep a pole perpendicularly on the finger, by giving it a rotation. But there certainly comes within the range of our ab- stract notions of what is possible, another sort of coun- terpoise, namely, one in which either equal forces should be balanced, or unequal forces balanced on a principle of adjustment, such as should involve no inequality. In the actual world, light, heat, and electricity (to look no fur- ther) as they are susceptible of a latent, or a less active state, as well as of a state of irresistible energy, and as, during their latent state, they are embedded in the inert and dissoluble masses, formed by the ponderable ele- ments, it must happen that, as often as they pass from the latent to the active state, these masses are either de- composed, or to some extent affected. But instead of OF ANOTHER LIFE. 241 this, it is surely conceivable, either that the energetic principles, such as light, heat, electricity, should be ex- cluded from a latent combination with the inert elements; or that they should not leave that state, and that the inert should retain what they possess, unalterably. In such a constitution of elements there could, as it seems, be no formations, no transitions, no growth, and no decay no death. A world so constituted, would be, during the sovereign pleasure of the Creator, unchangeable and eter- nal ; or if it were allowable to apply to the physical world, inspired language, intended probably to apply only to the spiritual world, the scheme of things we have imagined might be described as " incorruptible, undefiled, and not fading away." Such, as we suppose, must be the consequence of es- tablishing a real counterpoise between the active and the inert elements of the material world. In the system around us, three great principles are reciprocating their influences; first, the inert elements; secondly, the active elements light, heat, and electricity, which however may be so many modifications merely of one element ; and thirdly, the principle of life, vegetable and animal, which we assume to be nothing else but MIND. From the interaction of the two former, results the circle of changes whithin which all bodies are revolving, through their solid, fluid, and gaseous states. From the action of the third upon the first and second, results organiza- tion, with its functions ; but organization, in combining these two unequal forces, submits to the inevitable con- dition of that combination, and begins to decay, almost as soon it reaches its perfection. At present, the prin- ciple of life seems to attach itself more intimately to the inert elements, and less so to the active ; and therefore it 21* 242 PHYSICAL THEORY lies exposed to all the power of the one over the other. But let the principle of life take on to the active ele- ments let it, itself essentially active, be balanced against the active, and be so adjusted therewith as to form a per- manent combination, and then life might continue at its point of rest for ever. Not forgetting the caution, once and again mentioned, we might yet, conditionally, make a reference to those passages, heretofore quoted, which affirm the future dis- solution of the material world by fire ; and assuming, for a moment, the literal sense of those predictions (and it is not proved that the literal sense should be rejected) then it will seem to be intimated that the unequal and restless counterpoise which has so long subsisted between light and heat and the inert elements, shall at last be over- thrown ; the former breaking through all restraints, and overcoming the latter, and so overcoming it as that it shall no more be capable of retaining the active force in a latent state. But the principle of life that is to say, Mind, is not dissoluble by any other principle ; nor can it give way before any intensity of a merely material energy; and although doubtless dependent upon the pleasure of the Creator, and immortal only by his will, who sustains that which he has produced ; yet must it be thoroughly inde- pendent of all coexistent and inferior forces or powers. We may at once be sure, on the one hand, that if life will endure only so long as He shall please who is the giver of life ; and on the other, that it is a principle standing be- yond the reach of all other forces, and inherently superior to every other. Let then the material universe vanish, silent and unnoticed as a dream ; or let it melt with fer- vent heat, and pass away, as in a painful struggle and con- OF ANOTHER LI vulsion, with a " great noise ; " in either rational and moral, shall emerge from and float clear and untouched above the terrors and the tempest of nature's dying day. Mind shall shake itself of the corruptible and dissoluble elements, and shall put on incorruption : it shall lay down the dishonour of its union with the inert masses of the material world, and put on the glory of a purely active and uncompounded corporeity ; it shall take leave of death, and be clothed with immortality. It is nothing else but an anticipation of this rising of the mind over the level of matter, that is now going on within the human system. Mind, in its first stage of combination with matter, exercises only the lowest of its faculties, and is long little more than merely passive ; but it gains every day upon the conditions of animal life, exerts more and more of its inherent powers, mechani- cal and rational ; and at length, not only governs, in a spontaneous manner, its immediate body, but so diverts and controls the powers of the material world as 'to make itself, in a sense, master of nature, and to serve itself of her laws. The arts of life are precisely so many conquests of mind, and so many instances of the yield- ing of matter to the pleasure of mind. Again, by its powers of abstraction the most abstruse relations of the material world are mastered and reduced to a practical and most important subserviency. Then, by the aid of these same relations, the vastness of the material universe is so far grasped, by our methods of reasoning, as to yield itself in degree to our conceptions, and to come within the range of our calculations. Man, although not yet lord of the visible universe as an adult, is lord of it as an heir ; and exercises an authority becoming the minority 244 PHYSICAL T H E O R Y of one for whom vast possessions are in reserve. This is not the language of empty pretensions : modern sci- ence and art make good, in detail, all that is here af- firmed at large. But as we go deeper and deeper into the recessess of our nature, and duly consider the dignity and the pow- ers of the moral life, and the vast compass of the affec- tions, we shall feel, in far greater force, the truth a truth of unbounded import, that the most excellent forms of matter are as nothing in comparison with the worth and destinies of the spirit. The affections of the spirit, and their power of intimate communion with the Infinite Spirit, not only raise the mind immeasurably above the level of the visible world, and carry it clear of the fate of that world ; but raise it even above the range of the merely intellectual faculties, so that a state may be con- ceived of far better and higher than that of the highest exercise of reason. In truth, what is it that leads us to attach the value we do attach to intellectual labour and achievement ] not the mere practical result of those engagements ; nor the mere labour, in itself considered ; but the EMOTION, the sentiment, and the moral power, connected with it, and by which it is prompted, animated, and rewarded. Within the entire circle of our intellectual constitution we value nothing but emotion ; it is not the powers, or the exercise of the powers, but the fruit of those powers, in so much feeling, of a lofty kind, as they will yield. Now that toward which we are constantly tend- ing, os our goal, that which we rest in when attained, as sufficient, it is that which shall be ultimate, and shall survive whatever has been mediate, or contributory, or accessory. Every thing short of the affections of the OF ANOTHER LIFE. 245 soul is a means to an end, and must have its season : it is temporary ; but the affections of the soul are the end of all, and they are eternal. Let the universe perish or be changed, the soul shall live. 2 16 PHYSICAL THEORY CHAPTER XIX. THE GENERAL GROUND OF CONJECTURAL REASONING CONCERING WHAT IS UNSEEN OR FUTURE. The suppositions we have followed, in the three preced- ing chapters, although separable and independent, are not irreconcilable ; but on the contrary, may well consist one with the other, or may each be true in part. Thus it may be the fact that the widely-dissimilar physical condition of the solar and the planetary surfaces, as adapted to the support of living species, may, in our own system, and in others, constitute a ground of broad dis- tinction as to the modes of existence severally found there ; and that while the planetary species, of all ranks, are necessarily corruptible, and mortal, and are perma- nent only by reproduction, the solar species may enjoy an individual permanency ; and even if liable to trans- formations, may yet be exempt from dissolution. Or if we scrupled to admit this bold conjecture, in its whole extent, yet it is almost impossible to resist the belief, first, that the father- world of the system, itself the foun- tain of light, heat, and vital energy, is vastly more than a desert, a naked and terrible wilderness of tempes- tuous combustion ; and secondly, that, if actually peo- pled with various orders, the physical law of their life is more excellent than that which prevails in the planets. The known and visible physical difference between the sun and the planets, goes near to making it certain that OF ANOTHER LIFE. 247 the powers oflife in the one, must be more steadily ba- lanced where stimulus is perpetual, than where it is in- termittent. At the same time, and while it is supposed that palpa- ble and visible organization, whether mortal or immortal, makes its home upon the surfaces of the solar and pla- netary bodies, it may be quite true (nor indeed, without doing violence to the language of scripture can we believe otherwise) that each world, of every system, includes, or is surrounded by, invisible orders, of seve- ral species, ranks, and qualities ; corporeal indeed, but imponderable, and attached to an element not open to cognizance by the animal senses. This belief, consi- dered as a matter of philosophy, and not of religion or faith, needs only that our notions of the corporeal part of the mental constitution should be defined and cleared up a little more, and it would then take its place among truths imperfectly known, but rationally admitted ; and it might receive enlargement and confirmation by means of a more exact attention to innumerable facts, that have been suffered to pass unnoticed. On this subject some- thing will be advanced in the next and concluding chapter. But while the actual universe as now constituted, is supposed to include capital inequalities of the corporeal economy, and to have its local distributions of life life corruptible and life incorruptible, and also to comprise within each locality the difference of palpable and impal- pable corporeity, it may yet be true (and the apparent meaning of the inspired writings conveys the belief) that the entire framework of nature has its limited era, and shall, after fulfilling an introductory purpose in the great scheme of the creation, give place to a new and a higher order of things, and to a construction of elements such as 248 PHYSICAL THEORY shall better consist with those ultimate moral ends for the sake of which all things are. " We," according to the divine promise, " look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein is to dwell righteousness." Thus may our three conjectures be composed, and made to consist, one with the other. But then in re- viewing the whole, as so adjusted, we owe it to our res- pect for the divine testimony (each one owes it to his own sense of piety) very clearly to separate from the mass so much as shall seem involved in the language of inspired writers. This portion, whatever may be its amount, and on this point there will be a diversity of opinion, is to be set off; and then so much as remains is to be accounted conjectural simply, and as such to be dealt with. But then, while taking due care not to con- found mere speculation with serious articles of belief, we should also take care not incuriously to dismiss, un- distinguished, the entire mass of what is called con- jectural ; for although a portion of this hypothetical matter may be nothing better than sheer supposition, and may be sustained only by its general agreement with what is known, another portion may perhaps claim to be considered with a closer attention, and may justly invite examination, as not unlikely to lead to some real ad- vancements of certain branches of philosophy. On this point also, something more may presently be said ; meanwhile let us, on broad grounds, endeavour to em- body the principles that justify conjectures, such as those that have been above propounded. Reasoning from analogy, is only the assuming that a certain power, or law, or principle, which is seen to take effect, and to operate in a given manner, under condi- OP ANOTHER LIFE. 249 tions specified, will also operate in the same, or in a si- milar manner, elsewhere, under conditions nearly the same. Thus whatever is found to belong to the general principle of gravitation, and to motion through resisting mediums, in this earth of ours, is confidently supposed to belong to the same principle, and to motion in other planets, and other systems, when once it has been as- certained that gravitation actually extends to those sys- tems, and regulates their revolutions. We consider it as certain that the law is the same, although the effects may be varied by the difference of the conditions under which it operates. As for example, if the density of Saturn, as compared with that of the earth, be not much greater than cork, then, his bulk also considered, the tendency of bodies on his surface will proportionately differ from the tendency of similar bodies on the surface of the earth: or again; the velocity of the equatorial re- gions of Jupiter being vastly greater than that of the earth's equatorial band, and the bulk of the two planets also differing, the respective variation between the weight of bodies, at different latitudes, between the poles and the equator in the two planets, will vary accordingly ; the one law holding good invariably in both. In draw- ing inferences of this sort it would be a false diffidence to call them conjectures ; for we tread on solid ground, although the path be far extended. Now our reasoning is not much less firm in texture, or much less entitled to confidence in its conclusions, when we take this portion of the universe, which is our home, and with which we are familiarly acquainted, as an exhibition be it on a very small scale, of the lead- ing principles of the creation, considered as the product of supreme intelligence and goodness. The universe is 22 250 PHYSICAL THEORY not the work of chance ; and therefore will not be found to'contain boundless irregularities, or freaks and utter inconsistencies of plan and principle. The universe is the work of mind, and the expression of unchangeable moral attributes; it will therefore, amid all its diversities, keep close to principle and law. We could not indeed, a priori^ say what these principles must be ; nor can we, apart from actual knowledge, fix a boundary upon fhe scale that measures the extreme instances of diversity : nevertheless we may conclude that, whatever is found to consist with these ruling motives, or to come within the circle of these great reasons, in our own world, must consist with them elsewhere ; and moreover, that every single principle which here manifests itself in a copious and unexhausted manner, is probably the display of a universal energy, that must find exercise, not in this world merely, but in all. Thus it is usual to argue, with confidence, from the fact of the incalculable multiplication of animal life, under so many forms, on the surface of this planet, that an un- bounded diffusion of life is a universal intention or prin- ciple of the creative power, and then, when we find the heavens to be filled with innumerable worlds, as if in harmony with this very same productive energy, and find too, so far as our observation reaches, that these worlds are all governed by the same physical laws, we conclude, not surely very uncertainly, that all worlds, or most worlds (for there may be single exceptions) are abodes of life ; and not less variously or copiously so than our own. If this often-repeated argument from analogy is to be termed, as to the conclusion it involves, a conjec- ture merely, we ought then to abandon altogether every kind of abstract reasoning ; nor will it be easy after- OF ANOTHER LIFE. 251 wards to make good any principle of natural theology. In truth the very basis of reasoning is shaken by a skep- ticism so sweeping as this. To set the rule of analogical reasoning, as now em- ployed, clear of all objections and difficulties, would de- mand a volume ; 'but at present, taking it as generally received, and using it a little further than can here be fully made good in its details, yet not any further than, as the author believes, might be strictly justified, we apply it to the conjectures lately propounded, as fol- lows : The universe, as actually known to us, is very clearly susceptible of being considered in a three-fold aspect ; that is to say, first, as extended through space; secondly, as extended in kind, or by diversity of species and modes of existence ; and thirdly, as extended through duration, or in time. We thus, and without logical refinement, think of the creation, or of any single region of it, as mathematically measurable ; as physically open to de- scription, and as demanding to be historically recorded, in respect of its commencement, and the epochs and re- volutions it may pass through. Now bringing the rule of analogy analogy includ- ing a belief in the universality of the divine attributes, into its application to the above-named threefold view of the creation, we seem warranted in supposing that there will be a proportion or a symmetry, so connecting these three modes of extension, as that no one of them will immeasurably surpass the others. This assumption may easily be explained, and its reasonableness illustrated, by stating some contrary suppositions, as thus : Let us imagine ourselves to have come up to the ex- terior wall of a vast palace, which already we have seen 25 PHYSICAL THEORY to cover many acres ; but on entering the outer gate, and in passing through its courts, we find that the enor- mous structure rises only one story from the basement, that its chambers are all of uniform dimensions, are all alike in embellishment and furniture, and that, in seeing the first of its thousand halls, we have seen all. And what if an unvarying ceremonial, an endless round of dull manoeuvres, repeated day after day through the year, and year after year, comprises the history of the person- ages of this palace ! The very idea is insufferable. Now to apply our illustration to the argument in hand, we con- sider it inevitable, or nearly so, to conclude that the ma- terial universe this palace of the great king, is various and vast in the species and modes of life it includes, as well as vast in mathematical extent ; and also propor- tionately vast and various in the destinies and the revo- lutions of which it shall be the theatre. The visible extent of the creation through space, we take as an indication, by the rule of symmetry, of the in- calculable compass of the varieties of being, now actually occupying the abodes that constitute the celestial sys- tem ; and again, this same visible extent of the creation seems to bespeak a corresponding or analogous vastness of range in the changes and revolutions, the transitions and the fortunes, that shall constitute the history of the entire system. By freely admitting the hypothesis of this sort of pro- portion, as involved in the symmetry of the universe, and as placing its extent in space, its extent in species, and its extent in time, on a footing of equality, we seem to have gained an idea of the whole, such as comports with the notion we must entertain of the infinite perfections of Him whose work it is. OF ANOTHER LIFE. 253 Will then the reader go forward with the author upon the ground of this supposition, as not unreasonable That the vastness of the visible universe, so far as it ac- tually comes within our means of knowledge, may be taken as a sort of gauge of the vastness of that range of intellectual and moral existence of which the visible uni- verse is the platform ? If this rule of measurement be granted, it will imply a corresponding vastness, or un- bounded range of fortunes, as attaching to the intellec- tual economy, and as yet to be developed in the lapse of time. Presuming upon the reader's willingness to grant the premises now demanded, it will be proper to endea- vour to define a little our conceptions of the actual ex- tent of the material system : not indeed as if the starry fields were to be measured by the line of human calcu- lation ; or as if even the multiplying of figures would enable the mind to grasp the quantities they represent. Nevertheless there is something which may be done, the doing of which is highly important to the purpose we have immediately in view. In dealing with a theme such as this, wherein the objects spoken of immeasurably tran- scend as well the powers of the conceptive faculty, as the powers of arithmetic and of language, the very plain- est style and the very homeliest terms, are the most ap- propriate; inasmuch as while employing such a style and terms, the illusion is avoided of supposing, either that our ideas, or our mode of expressing them, bears any sort of proportion to the things spoken of. We will then speak of the probable dimensions of the heavens, as we should of the width and height of a building. Methods of computation (as every one knows) which are not uncertain, afford us the means of advancing a negative proposition, to this effect, that the nearest of 22* 254 PHYSICALTHEORY fixed stars is more remote than the distance, already mentioned (page 59), or about twenty billions of miles, a distance which would be traversed by light (passing ninety-five millions of miles in 8 min. 7 sec.) in three years and two hundred and sixteen days. But there are millions of stars so much more remote than those that have been supposed to afford a parallax, that they may actually have ceased to exist three thousand years ago, and yet may appear in their places ; their last ray not having reached our system : these facts every one is familiar with. But now, in supposing ourselves to pass on beyond the nearer strata of the starry expanse, and towards the most remote which powerful telescopes discover, have we any reason to imagine that we are approaching the con- fines of creation? or shall we conclude that, beyond the reach of the human eye, and the telescope, nothing re- mains? This was surely a greater presumption than to admit as probable, the contrary supposition, well as it consists with what we actually know. What is it that encircles the creation, so far as seen ? certainly not any limit of the creative power. But the material world is not infinite: no; yet infinitude allows that the visible heavens should be multiplied, or repeated, millions of times, and still that it should lie far within the limits of the infinite. The apparent probability is that the uni- verse has no such limits as those which the human eye extends to. The inference we are warranted in drawing is of the same sort as that we should adopt, concerning the expanse of the ocean, in looking at the horizon from successive elevations : we first measure the watery field from the deck of a ship ; and thence we behold a billowy line, not much exceeding a radius of a league or OF ANOTHER LIFE. 255 two. But we ascend the shrouds, and at the height of the main yards or cross-trees perceive that a much evener horizon marks a distance at which the waves cease to be discernible, or to present a serrated line ; and we accordingly extend our calculation to the distance of eight or ten leagues. Thence we climb to the top- mast, and again stretch our circle to a double diameter, or more ; and if we could borrow the wings of the eagle, and soar to the clouds, we should still gaze upon a widening prospect, and find that the dim distance en- larges at every stage of our ascent, and at a rate sur- passing the scale we had assumed at the first. It is thus that every extension of our means of know- ing the starry field, has only served to open to us a vastly wider prospect, without giving any indication of our dis- cerning a limit : on the contrary, new nebulae, similar to those that have been found to consist of innumerable stars, are revealed, and new vistas of worlds are dimly opened before us. Thus we have every reason to sup- pose the creation to be immensely more extensive than the space reached by the telescope : and yet this space, in the mode in which it offers itself to our conceptions, suggests a supposition, tending to give consistency, as well as enlargement, to our notions of the universe. The galaxy, ascertained to consist of innumerable stars, and forming, as seen from our system, a some- what irregular band, encircling the heavens, obliquely to the ecliptic, gives, to the general figure of the starry expanse, the form of a flat parallelogram, about the midst of which is placed the sun of our system. Laterally, and looking towards the sides of this parallelogram, the stars are comparatively scanty; but looking in any di- rection, longitudinally, or towards the extremities, we 256 PHYSICAL THEORY include, of course, a vast perspective, and see a thick- ened brightness, constituted of the countless worlds that are ranged within the general figure. But now, in adhering to the analogy of the celestial structures, are we to conceive of this parallelogram as being such indeed, and as stretching itself, in obedience to no rule of symmetry, through space, like a raft, float- ing in the ocean? or shall we not rather believe that the portion of the field of space which we see replenished with suns, constitutes really a segment of a sphere, so immeasurably vast, that the suns ranged in the opposite sides of the hollow globe are totally beyond the range of vision, or perhaps even beyond the passage of light. In fact, the diameter of this supposed sphere must be such that, if light could traverse it, countless ages must elapse before it could reach us. The supposition we now pro- pound may be conceived of readily by any one who imagines a hollow globe, we will say of three feet diam- eter, formed of a crust of glass, two inches thick ; and this crust containing, pretty plentifully, grains of sand, evenly distributed. Now if we think of the eye as sta- tioned at any one of these grains, as its point of view, the speckled substance of the glassy crust would present an appearance not unlike that offered by the starry heavens ; laterally, to the right and left, the substance would be comparatively clear of grains; but in every direction longitudinally, that is to say, following the course of the substance, the grains would seem so thick- ly ranged as to give an opacity to its appearance. At the same time, the opposite side of the globe would be too remote for its grains to attract the eye. If this supposition is thought to consist with the law which seems to impose a spherical figure upon all the OF ANOTHER LIFE. 257 celestial masses and motions, and so to recommend itself as probable, and as agreeable to the analogy of known facts, then it will be manifest that the portion of the heavens seen by us, can bear but a small proportion to the part unseen ; such a proportion, for example, as is borne by the Australian continent to the entire surface of our globe. To present the appearance which it act- ually does, this portion can hardly exceed the extent of fifty degrees of the circle. And yet, when we have conceived of a starry sphere, such as has been described, are we to conclude that we have compassed the material universe? If there be one such sphere, there may be, in remotest space, an- other; and if another, many. This world of ours is not the universe; the solar system is not the universe : but do our telescopes of twenty feet long sweep the field of the universe 1 The probability that they do not is as strong as any probability can be : every reason is on the other side ; and with the infinity of space, and the infi- nite creative power and will of the Supreme Being as the field and the means, the belief that this energy reaches its boundary within any circle that any created mind will ever be able to measure, or to conceive of, is not to be entertained. On the contrary, we may far more reason- ably suppose, not only that the divine perfections of power and wisdom abstractedly, will always surpass the comprehension of finite beings, but that the products of those perfections will go beyond the longest line of created minds ; and that not the loftiest seraph shall ever be able to reach a spot whence, with even a seraph's ken, he may be able to descry the lone boundaries of the creation, and to look beyond the circle of productive power. Rather let us believe that creatures the 258 PHYSICAL THEORY highest of them, let them wander where they may, and as far as they may, and let them hold on their course with unwearied curiosity, age after age, and in what di- rection they may please, shall yet find themselves in the very heart of the populous dominions of the Almighty, and surrounded, in all directions, by worlds and systems of worlds. Whoever takes the simple facts now ascertained, and forming part of our astronomy, and, with laborious and continued effort of the mind, follows them out, and brings them within grasp, even faintly, of the conceptive and rational faculties, will find it far more easy to go the length we have now gone, in our hypothesis of the ma- terial universe, than to stop short of it, at any point, and to conceive of a limit, or a cessation of the creative energy. The limit, place it where we may, offends rea- son ; but the unbounded conception gives us the liberty we want in thinking of God and his works. Whatever speculation we may indulge, concerning the vastness, or the form of the visible universe, it manifest- ly transcends all our powers of conception and calcula- tion. The " stars of heaven " are as the " sands upon the sea shore " innumerable : and they are planted through space at distances, one from the other, exceed- ing all means of measurement. This is enough. But now, in considering the vast structure as THE WORK or MIND, and as the product, not of power merely, but of wisdom, we are absolutely compelled to assign to the whole a purpose proportionate to the mechanical prepa- ration for life which it furnishes. The vastness of the platform implies a corresponding grandeur of intention ; and an intention as ample in its compass as the necessary OF ANOTHER LIFE. 259 conditions of finite being may admit. That is to say, in looking at the heavens we assume that a theatre so stu- pendous does, and shall sustain the utmost amount of life, not merely in numbers, but in kinds, which it can ab- stractedly sustain. The Creator having, as we see, put forth his power unboundedly, in relation to space, shall put it forth unboundedly also in relation to species, and modes of existence. The strength of this sort of inference will be differ- ently estimated by different minds ; but there are few, if any, who would not yield to it, to some extent. For ex- ample ; none could tolerate the idea, and especially see- ing what we see in our own planets, that the innumerable spheres around us are totally untenanted, and that the stupendous celestial mechanism, is a mechanism merely. Not much more admissible is the idea that, our own planet excepted, the lowest forms of life only, as of vegetables and zoophytes, are to be found in all the fair fields of crea- tion. Nor again, can the mind satisfy itself, or get free from a distressing sense of disproportion, in stopping short of the belief that intellectual and moral life, on a scale at least equal to that which has place in this world, has place in other worlds. But this is barely enough ; or it is the lowest supposi- tion that can at all be entertained ; and the idea which the author would fain set at work in the reader's mind in- volves a principle that must carry us much further. And it is not merely that we involuntarily expect to find with- in so vast a scheme beings higher in faculty and power than man ; but that a wider range should be taken as to the modes of existence. In all worlds is there nothing to be found except animal organization, and nothing more excellent] Is the creative energy hemmed in so much, 260 PHYSICAL THEORY as that the human structure is the utmost that can be ac- complished ? If nothing restrains it, as we see it is not restrained in respect of dimensions, or numbers, is it re- strained in respect of the means and elements of life 1 We conclude it is not ; and on the contrary must profess to believe that the reach of power, in the one respect, is fully borne out by its reach in the other ; and that the universe is not more amazing in a simply mechanical or mathematical sense, than it is in what we must call its physiology. The divine attributes, as we have already had occasion to observe, are not to be conceived of like the faculties or the impulses of human nature, as so many distinct and separable qualities, or powers, any one or more of which may come into play, while the others remain inert. No- thing less can be admitted, concerning the infinite and absolute Being, than that He is ONE in essence, in a sense exclusive of all partial modes of procedure, or single ex- ertions of particular attributes. We must not think that the divine power is put forth in any instance, not accom- panied by the divine wisdom ; or these apart from good- ness and justice. God is, not, in any act, just only, or good only, or wise only, or almighty only ; but always, and in every particular act, exhibits, or if not exhibits, really exercises, the complement of his awful perfections : and as we must not think that any one of those attributes which we, from the limitation of our powers, are com- pelled to speak of distinctively, comes into act alone, so neither must we suppose that any one attribute is ever, or in any case, latent ; for the latter supposition, as well as the former, implies what must by no means be grant- ed a parting, or a divisibility of the divine nature. This belief of what must be termed the simplicity and integrity OP ANOTHER LIFE. 261 of the Infinite Being, which is of the utmost importance in relation to every branch of theology, carries with it the belief that if God creates at all, he will create in the plenary exercise of his undivided perfections. Now what we actually see of the celestial system goes little further than to display infinite power. Our scien- tific deductions indeed give evidence of intelligence in the equipoise of the planetary revolutions; but at this point we stop. Yet although deprived of the means of imme- diately ascertaining, or of witnessing, the exertion of the other attributes of Deity, ought we to doubt, or can we, with any consistency doubt, that power and intelligence, thus boundlessly put forth, under our eyes, are moving alone 1 Rather we conclude, with a rational confidence, that the bare power and intelligence are subsidiary only to the exercise of the moral perfections ; and that there- fore, on the theatre of the material universe the greatest range possible is taken for putting in movement those loftier attributes. It is on this ground then that, while we hold very light every special hypothesis concerning the universe, which is not distinctly sustained by scriptural evidence, or actual facts, we challenge a serious importance for the PRINCI- PLE on which such conjectures proceed, and can by no means admit that the refutation of any one such particu- lar hypothesis would involve a rejection of the theory of which it may be an individual expression. What has now been said concerning that range and variety in the modes of existence which seems implied, by the rule of symmetry, in the mere vastness of the ma- terial universe, is plainly applicable also, as we have as- sumed it to be, to that range and variety of fortune which the lapse of time shall develope. If we cannot admit the 23 262 PHYSICAL THEORY belief that a low uniformity prevails through all worlds, neither can we imagine a dull monotony to be the law of all. In truth the very attributes which give birth to variety, at any one moment, must give birth to variety, succes- sively, or through the eras of time. That same power and intelligence which expand in the one direction, will expand in the other, by necessity : nor can we assign any value to our argument in its bearing upon space, and spe- cies, which will not attach to it, in an equal degree, in re- lation to time. Moreover, high faculties involve high destinies, whether for the better or the worse : a faculty is a germinating power; and the more profound or expansive it is, the greater will be the difference between its early and its later developements. A being of complex faculty will never fail to create to itself A HISTORY. Two such be- ings associated, will generate a course of events indefi- nitely various ; and a large community of beings, each endowed with active powers, and impelled by various and contrary impulses, must impart a complexity to the course of events such as is not to be unravelled, or brought round to its simple elements, within any brief period. Or perhaps, we should rather say that a course of events, complicated as it must be by springing from the interac- tion of beings themselves complex in powers and desires, will perpetually involve itself deeper and deeper with the great principles of moral government ; and thus will ac- cumulate its demands upon futurity, wherein laws are to be vindicated, and irregularities reduced to system. To bring then our present argument to a conclusion, and summarily to state its import, we look upon the visi- ble universe, its immeasurable spaces, and its innumera- OF A N O T H E R LIFE. 263 ble spheres, as a fully expressed symbol of POWER, but as a partially expressed symbol of WISDOM ; we say partially, because it is hardly at all by the eye, and only in degree by the inferences of science, that the construc- tion of this stupendous work is at present cognizable. But we do not forget that it is by accommodation to our own modes of thinking that we speak of the power and wisdom of God distinctively, and that, in truth, these at- tributes are relations only of the one undivided and un- distinguished Infinite Nature. This same celestial struc- ture therefore, could we examine it throughout, would be found to exhibit every other attribute, in act, with an equal or proportionate intensity. The power has not gone fur- ther than the wisdom, nor these further than the good- ness, or the rectitude ; and the universe is doubtless as great in every sense, as it is great in mere dimension, and in number of parts. It is as if, upon the palace wall of the Supreme, a hand were seen writing : already it has written, in our view * Power,' and partly Wisdom ; but knowing whose name it is, of which this writing is the initial portion, we well know that the entire inscrip- tion must run on much further. Let every one then every one capable of holding correspondence with the Creative and with the Ruling Mind, let every one read, in the visible heavens, a dim, and yet not fallacious presage of the vastness, and the depth, and height, of the unseen economy, with which he shall find his destinies involved ; and let him believe that, when this now unseen economy comes to be known, the vastness of the material theatre shall cease to attract regard, in comparison with the stupendous movements and destinies it sustains. 264 PHYSICAL THEORY CHAPTER XX. ON THE ADVANCEMENT OF PNEUMATOLOGY. THE two pioneers of physical philosophy are Accident and Hypothesis; and so it is that science, while profess- ing to care for nothing but what is certain, actually owes the extension of her domain very much to chance, and to conjecture. This humiliating fact, if indeed it should be thought of as humiliating, is forcibly felt, and freely acknowledged, during the spring season of any single branch of science ; for then the particular instances are fresh in every one's recollection. But afterwards, and when the new truths have acquired firmness and con- sistency, and when they have settled down into the form of an ascertained system, and when this system exacts submission, instead of asking for patronage, then it is apt to shrink disdainfully from its early helps, to frown upon hypothesis, and to think itself beyond the reach of any further accessions from accident. This feeling and practice however, are not to be admitted ; and philosophy, in its ripest state, should still favour the means of its early triumphs, and freely yield itself to every new chance of advancement. All this is especially true in relation to the several branches of intellectual philosophy ; and yet the very difficulty and indistinctness of the subject, which should incline those who pursue it to admit and invite every pos- sible aid, seems rather to inspire a prudish jealousy, or OF ANOTHER LIFE. 265 coyness, as if what is felt to be held in an uncertain and precarious manner, were secure only while guarded against every rudeness. Among the expressions of this sort of latent fear, the following may be named ; and first, a stern decision, in relation to certain natural subjects of curiosity, concern- ing the constitution of man, that they lie absolutely and hopelessly beyond the reach of the human faculties ; and that it is a proof of ignorance, and presumption, and of an incapacity to discern the real limits of mental philo- sophy, so much as to moot these questions, or to indi- cate a wish to pursue them : just as it is held to be the sign of a smattering acquaintance with mathematical principles, to go in quest of a perpetual motion. Again, this -same unacknowledged feeling would restrict us, not merely in relation to the subjects of inquiry, but as to the mode of conducting those inquiries which, in themselves, are granted to be legitimate. Mental philosophy must be cultivated, it is said, with clean hands ; that is to say in a rigid avoidance of any process of investigation not strictly analytical and metaphysical; or such as would seem to bring these high themes down from their eleva- tion, and set them upon the common level of physiologi- cal researches. All we can know of MIND (as we are taught to believe) is to be found in an analysis of our personal consciousness : the mental philosopher need never leave his study. Mental philosophy is granted to be inductive; but the materials of the induction are all in the bosom. Once more ; the very same freedom in admitting con- jectures which, within the circle of the physical sciences, is allowed and encouraged, on the well understood prin- ciple that such conjectures (never confounded with as- 23* 266 PHYSICAL THEORY certained facts) may lead the way to discovery, and keep the mind alert, and ready to avail itself of happy acci- dents this same freedom of conjecture, which has been so fruitful a source of important advancements, is somewhat superciliously discarded from the precincts of Intellectual Philosophy, as worthy only of vulgar and empirical minds. But before conjecture or hypothesis is thus excluded from the range of mental science, it should be proved, that the occult constitution of rational and sentient beings is to be explored by the method of analysis alone ; for it is manifest, that if the mental, like the animal structure, may possibly become better known than it is by a collation of various classes of facts facts assembled under the guidance of a previously assumed theory, then it will follow that it is to the aid of hypothe- sis we should look for further advancements, in this, as well as in other lines of physical inquiry. And in truth, by so much as this subject is obscure and remote from immediate observation, the more need have we of such assistance. Have we not mental firmness enough to secure ourselves absolutely against the danger of putting mere conjecture in the place of real science] If we have not, let us abstain altogether from philosophic pur- suits. But it may be asked, what room is there for hypothe- sis, or in what direction are conjectures to be hazarded, in relation to the proper objects of mental philosophy ? In reply, we grant at once, that there is little room for admitting these pregnant methods of inquiry in relation to that sort of mental philosophy which turns upon the adjustment and exact expression of abstract notions, and which is properly termed METAPHYSICS. But we look wider when we think of intellectual science, and think of OF ANOTHER LIFE. 267 it as a branch of physiology. Thus understood, it not merely embraces more objects, but comes under methods of investigation that are more diversified. Metaphysics is analytic simply ; but Intellectual Philosophy, while it employs analysis, rests mainly upon induction (in the physical sense of the term) and must employ as well hypothesis, as observation and experiment. Metaphysical mental philosophy is the knowledge of MIND ; but Physical mental philosophy is the knowledge of MINDS ; and this distinction opens before us at once, a wide and various field. The knowledge of minds we might consent to designate by the term Pneumatology, comprehensively understood ; and it will then lead us to make inquiry, not merely concerning the laws of mind, as discoverable by an analysis of our personal conscious- ness ; but concerning those often-recurrent varieties of mental conformation (within the human system) which assume very nearly the distinctness and the regularity that constitute specific differences, and which might pro- perly give rise to a classification by orders, genera, and species. If any such classification were effected, it is manifest that a comparison of the differences on the ground of which it was made would immensely extend and advance our knowledge of mind in the abstract ; for it is only by setting off the differences, one after another, that any generic body or class of things can be known. But this is not all ; for, on the one hand, with the many indications, some indeed obscure, and some explicit, of the existence of rational orders, other than the human, and, on the other hand, with innumerable sentient and voluntary species around us, partaking with ourselves, in the fullest manner, of all the rudimental faculties of 268 PHYSICAL THEORY mind, and exhibiting proofs also of the germs or faint characteristics of some of the highest faculties, it can never be assented to that mental philosophy should be restricted within the limits of the human system. Even if it were true that we may know much more of the human mind, than of any other class, and that the knowledge of the human mind is of more practical con- sequence than the knowledge of any other, it will not follow, if we regard the spirit and rules of our modern physical sciences, that we should so narrow the range of our curiosity. But in truth, it may be made to appear, that the knowledge of the human mind is more likely to be advanced, in relation to what still remains obscure, by pursuing these difficulties on other ground than that Of the human mind, than by arrogantly and pertinaciously continuing to fix our attention upon the facts of our per- sonal consciousness. Let us leave our closets, forsake our dim seclusions, and our lamps, and open our eyes upon the wide world of animated beings. In relation to the supernal branch of pneumatology, alluded -to above, it is granted that science can go but a little way, with its merely natural means of infor- mation ; nor is it desirable that an intermixture of philoso- phical inquiries, and biblical deductions, should be encou- raged. On this very principle the author, in the preceding pages, has avoided every thing beyond a mere passing re- ference to facts known to us only through the medium of the inspired writings. The subject is a biblical one, and might well engage the attention of those qualified to pur- sue it, in the legitimate methods of interpretation and criticism. And yet, in placing this obscure subject in a clearer light than at present falls upon it, little probably would be done by any who should resolve to entertain OF ANOTHER LIFE. none of those mere conjectures which suggests them- selves to us in hours of unrestricted meditation, those numerous pasages of scripture which affirm or imply the existence and agency of superhuman and extra-human orders, are manifestly imperfect allusions merely to sin- gle points of a vast scheme, veiled from our view ; and unless we court the aid of hypothesis and of more than onehypothesis, in expounding those scattered notices, it is not probable that we shall ever advance a step beyond the mere literal interpretation of single texts. On the contrary, it might happen, that a series of suppositions, well devised, might at length lead to some such general notion on the subject as would give consistency to all parts of the evidence, dissipate many difficulties, and even lead to our entertaining more expanded and more profoundly affecting notions of that scheme within which our own destinies are involved. In advancing the conjectures which, in the present work, he has hazarded, the author has briefly stated some of those suppositions he has been accustomed to entertain, in reading the scriptures, with the very view of catching every faint indication of things unseen, and that often are of a kind so obscure as to escape notice entirely, ex- cept when the mind is quickened, in an unusual manner, by the excitement of some general and consistent con- ception of the unseen economy. No sound mind is se- duced from its sobriety longer than a few minutes by any such conception, how plausible soever it may seem. But although not beguiled, the mind may be substan- tially aided by thus entertaining an hypothesis. Let, for example, some one such theory be distinctly digested, and the mind filled with it ; let it be compared with what- ever we know of the system of the universe, whether by 270 PHYSICAL THEORY analogy or observation ; and then let the entire chain of scripture evidence, critically examined, be gone over, with a view to this particular supposition. The conse- quence will be, perhaps, its absolute rejection ; or per- haps it may so adjust itself with special points of the evi- dence as to forbid its total rejection, and so as may lead to its being held in reserve, to be compared with the re- sults of inquiries conducted on some other principle. But are such inquiries altogether idle, futile, and vain ? Will those venture to say so, who entertain a due reverence for the canon of scripture, and who believe that every separate portion of it is placed where it is found with a specific intention, and for an important end ? Let it rather be believed as probable that, if our Christi- anity is to recommend itself more extensively than hith- erto it has done, to mankind at large, it will be (in part) by our obtaining some more enlarged conceptions of the great spiritual economy conceptions such as may im- part the force and vividness of reality to our faith in things unseen. But we turn, at present, from this more obscure and difficult branch of pneumatology, which must always come more within the range of theology than of science ; and advert to that other branch of the same subject, in relation to which all the materials are under our eye, and the methods of proceeding are strictly and simply inductive. Now whatever may be the prejudices that stand in the way of such a course of inquiry, it appears that, if our object be to analyze the mind, and to learn the con- ditions arid laws that attach, severally, to its faculties, a scrutiny of our personal consciousness is but one of the means to be employed ; and indeed it is now acknow- OFANOTHERLIFE. 271 ledged, by some of the authorities in this department of philosophy, that an attention to the multifarious deve- lopements of the intellectual and moral powers, in indivi- dual minds, is advantageous, or indispensable, for com- pleting our intellectual science ; and that it is by com- paring these various facts with our own consciousness, that either is to be understood. Thus while the method of analysis and abstraction interprets the facts collected by observation, these enlarge and define the results of analysis. But what principle, admitted as good in any other de- partment of science, will justify our confining our view to human nature, while mind is exhibiting itself under ten thousand modifications, around us] All the rudi- ments of the mental constitution, as more fully develop- ed in man, meet our eye and invite our curiosity in the inferior species ; and it would seem to be the most na- tural, and the most auspicious course of inquiry, to begin at the lower part of the scale of intelligence, and to make ourselve familiar, first, with the simpler forms of the percipient, voluntary, and reasoning principle. A mere arrogance surely, as if intellectual philosophy were degraded by taking its first steps on so low a path, should not be allowed to have its influence with those who have learned the logic of modern science. Shall the chemist pursue his inquiries, only so far as may be done by examining the nobler elements heat, light, electricity, the precious metals, and the diamond ; but stop when it would be necessary to soil his hands with earths ? There is, however, a branch of intellectual philosophy, or we would rather say of pneumatology, in relation to which an extensive and laborious examination of the cor- 272 PHYSICAL THEORY poreal mental structure of the various sentient tribes our fellows in animal organization, seems to be impera- tively demanded, and promises to yield very important results. Once and again, in the course of this essay, the author has had occasion to refer, hastily, to the sub- ject which he will now endeavour, somewhat more dis- tinctly to express, It is well understood that mental philosophy should be pursued irrespectively of any theory we may enter- tain concerning the structure or functions of the brain ; and that the deductions and the distinctions which con- stitute this science must be precisely such as they are, whatever opinion we may adopt in reference to the purely physical question of the dependence of the mind upon animal organization. This granted, it is yet certain that we must return to the subject of animal organiza- tion when the important controversy is entered upon concerning the independent reality and immateriality of the mind, and when we have to deal with the opinion, that mind is nothing but a function of the animal struc- ture ; or that thought and perception are products of the medullary mass, just as the bilious secretion is the pro- duct of the liver. In opposition to any such opinions, we may either take the course of metaphysical argument, and show that the soul must be a simple, indiscerptible substance, immaterial, and immortal ; or we may take the moral and religious course of argument, and prove from the instincts, the anticipations, and the grandeur of the hu- man mind, that it must be altogether superior to the body, and must be its survivor. But now, in pursuing the first of these lines of argument (and indeed, the se- cond in part) we find ouselves entangled in some conse- OP ANOTHER LIFE. 273 quences not easily avoided or disposed of, in relation to the inferior tribes of the animated world, inasmuch as the reasoning we employ, and the principles we assume, will almost inevitably stretch an inference as far as to include every species of beings that perceives, and acts, and that is wrought upon by emotions allied to those we call moral. It must indeed be confessed that the argument of the im materialist, as sometimes conducted, if pushed to its consequences, would go near to imply the immor tality of birds, beasts, fishes, insects, and zoophytes! Happily however there is another course open to us ; and in the first place (which we may well afford to do) let us get completely clear of all the embarrassments alluded to above, by ceasing to seek for any aid in es- tablishing the immortality of the human soul, from the doctrine of its immateriality, or spirituality, or indepen- dence of matter. Man we believe to be immortal (rev- elation apart) not because his mind is separable from animal organization ; but because his intellectual and moral constitution is such as to demand a future devel- opement of his nature. Why should that which is imma- terial be indestructible ? None can tell us ; and on the contrary, we are free to suppose that there may be im- material orders, enjoying their hour of existence, and then returning to nihility. But now, taking up the hypothesis that animal life, in all its kinds every being that has consciousness, per- ception, and voluntary motion, possesses a principle totally distinct from the animal tissue, and the animal functions a principle strictly immaterial (although perhaps always in fact combined with some kind of cor- poreal congestion of elements) then it will remain to bring this doctrine to the test of facts ; and perhaps we 274 PHYSICAL THEORY may be able to bring it to the test of experiment. In doing so it is clear that our methods of inquiry will be most exempt from exception, and our conclusion the most decisive, if we carry on the investigation, chiefly, on the field of inferior animal life. If on this field we make good our ground, every thing will be secured, as by anticipation, or a fortiori. And not merely will there be an argumentative ad- vantage in establishing the doctrine of the independence of mind, on the broader and lower basis of merely animal existence, but the almost infinitely varied structures of the animated tribes around us, will be found to offer many instances of so striking and decisive a kind, as will hardly allow of a choice of opinions, but will compel us to adopt a belief such as must utterly exclude the opinion of the materialist. If the human animal struc- ture may leave us in doubt, we shall scarcely find it possible to hesitate when we come to examine the struc- ture and physiology of inferior species : we may perhaps be perplexed in considering the question of the immate- riality or rather independence of the human mind, but shall be relieved of all difficulty in examining the animal mechanism of insects and worms. There are those probably, who would not wish even to see the materialist confuted, if it must be on the strange and offensive condition a condition so deroga- tory to the dignity of man, of our acknowledging a broth- erhood of mind, such as shall include the polypus, the sea jelly, and the animalcule of a stagnant pool. But science knows of no aversions ; and must hold on its way, through evil report and good report. Truth, in the end, will not fail to justify itself, in all its consequen- ces and relations. OF ANOTHER LIFE. 275 The line of investigation necessary for doing justice to our present hypothesis, it would not be difficult to mark out. Let the muscular power be first considered and a copious comparison of structures be instituted, such as should support a rational conclusion concerning the process, and the mechanism by which it is effected : as thus In all cases of muscular movement, a connexion, either with the brain, or with a ganglion, sustaining the same office, by the means of the nervous chords, is in- dispensable : except when the limb is supplied with galvanic excitement in an artificial manner; in which case motion ensues ; but it is motion of one sort only 5 namely a convulsive contraction of the stronger muscle or muscles, in each antagonist set. Now this exceptive case, accidentally made known to us, naturally suggests the belief that, what the brain supplies is galvanic ex- citement merely ; or a stimulus, of whatever kind, equiv- alent to that furnished by galvanism. We are then to seek for the cause of discriminative motion ; or for the cause of those movements in which the stronger muscles remain at rest, while the weaker are called into action. Does then the brain supply, not only the chemical stim- ulus of contractility, but also the directive or discrimina- tive power, which acts upon certain muscles, and holds others in suspension? Now beside the abstract im- probability of this double function of the same viscus, we find, upon examining the structure and arrangement of the nervous chords, in all species, that while they are admirably fitted for discharging the office of conveying a stimulus indiscriminately to the limbs, they cannot, without the highest difficulty, be considered as the chan- nels of distinct volitions to particular muscles. The 276 PHYSICAL THEORY one purpose speaks itself in their construction; the other is as plainly contradicted and excluded. Espe- cially does this impracticability strike us in the nervous economy of certain of the inferior classes of the anima- ted world. In the general scheme then of muscular motion, we have clearly before us the several constituents all but one. There is the bony fulcra or leverage, with its hinges ; the muscular fibre, banded together, secured to its attachments, and supplied with blood ; and there is the nervous net work, conveying, from the brain or spinal process, the stimulus which produces the vehe- ment contraction of the fleshy tissue. But in all this we yet want the principal agent, namely that power which determines the kind, and the direction of the movement that in each instance is to ensue. Does this agency come from the brain ? The conclusion we an- ticipate is that it does not ; inasmuch as the line of con- nexion is not at all adapted to any such purpose. Does there then remain within the animal apparatus, any sys- tem of vessels, or any gland, or any fluid, not otherwise occupied, to which we may probably assign the office of determining motion? There is none ; and we therefore attribute the determination immediately > to a power dis- tinct from, and independent of, the visible structure : that is to say the MIND, present throughout the body, and acting and feeling, wherever present, by its inherent faculty in relation to matter. It need hardly be said that our hypothesis is open to a special mode of attestation, or refutation, by the means of the various accidents that affect the muscular power, in consequence of disease. Thus all the facts connected with convulsive and spasmodic affections, on the one OF ANOTHER LIFE. hand, and with paralysis and leipothymic states of the system, on the other, or with delirium, and insanity, and febrile excitement, will, if fairly considered, either con- firm or exclude the theory we adopt. Besides these methods, it is easy to imagine experiments, such as should be almost of a decisive kind. From the examination of the muscular system, we should advance to consider the mechanism of sensation. The organ of sense and the brain, are connected by a chord : there is therefore doubtless a communication going on from the one to the other. But what is it that is conveyed ; and in which direction does the current flow? It is said that sensations are transmitted from the organ to the brain ; the stream therefore is in a direc- tion contrary to that which takes place in effecting mus- cular motion ; for in that case, the volition flows down from the brain to the extremities. But according to our hypothesis, the course of the current is the same in both cases ; and the influence conveyed is also the same. That is to say, we assume that the brain supplies the organ with galvanic excitement, and nothing else ; just as it supplies the muscular fibres with galvanic excite- ment, and nothing else, and that, as the mind, in the limb, determines motion, so the mind, in the organ, admits sensation. Sensation, as we suppose, takes place at the tangential point or surface, where the exter- nal vibration gives rise to a vibration upon the nervous expansion. With a view of determining the question, as here stated, we should first examine the sense of touch, and must profess the conviction that the arrangement and reticulation of the nerves of feeling are such as to render the supposition of the conveyance of distinct local sen- PHYSICAL THEORY sations, from the surface of the body to the brain, in the highest degree ineligible ; while the hypothesis of a mere conveyance of excitement, from the brain to the surface, and of the immediate presence of the percipient faculty, at the point of sensation is rendered almost certain. If, on an extensive comparison of facts, permanent and accidental, this were admitted, the same hypothesis would not be denied in relation to the other organs of sensation ; and thus, instead of an organ despatching vo- litions, and receiving sensations, we should have, in the brain, a secreting viscus merely ; and we should then at- tribute sensation, volition, consciousness, and power, not to an animal organ, but to the MIND, natively fraught with power, active and passive to the mind, linked in- deed to the animal structure, but suffused throughout it, and constituting the LIFE. The hypothesis we have here stated is surely suscep- tible of being brought to the test of facts, in the ordinary modes of scientific inquiry. Its consequences perhaps, if established, might be more extensive and various than at first they may appear. At least they would not fail to place Pneumatology on a firmer and a broader basis ; and so to open the way for enlarged and definite concep- tions of the great Spiritual Economy of the universe. THE END. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OP 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. FED 161 942 J iw'HU r ' , LD 21-100m-7,'40 (6936s) YB 22991 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY