selves, may be appropriated to us in the manner which our present bodies are, as how we can receive impressions from, and have power over any matter. It is as easy to conceive, that we may exist out of bodies, as in them; that we might have animated bodies of any other organs and senses wholly different from these now given us, and that we may hereafter animate these same or new bodies variously modified and organized, as to conceive how we can animate such bodies as our present. And, lastly, the dissolution of all these several organized bodies, supposing ourselves to have successively animated them, would have no more conceivable tendency to destroy the living beings, ourselves, or deprive us of living faculties, the faculties of perception and of action, than the dissolution of any foreign matter, which we are capable of receiving impressions from, and making use of for the common occasions of life.

II. The simplicity and absolute oneness of a living agent cannot, indeed, from the nature of the thing, be properly proved by experimental observations. But as these fall in with the supposition of its unity, so they plainly lead us to conclude certainly, that our gross organized bodies, with which we perceive the objects of sense, and with which we act, are no part of ourselves, and therefore show us, that we have no reason to believe their destruction to be ours; even without determining whether our living substances be material or immaterial. For we see by experience, that men may lose their limbs, their organs of sense, and even the greatest part of these bodies, and yet remain the same living agents: And persons can trace up the existence of themselves to a time when the bulk of their bodies was extremely small, in comparison of what it is in mature age; and we cannot but think, that they might then have lost a considerable part of that small body, and yet have remained the same living agents, as they may now lose great part of their present body, and remain so. And it is certain, that the bodies of all animals are in a con

to consider the imaginary presumptions, that death will be our destruction, arising from these kinds of early and lasting prejudices; and to show how little they can really amount to, even though we cannot wholly divest ourselves of them. And,

I. All presumption of death's being the destruction of living beings, must go upon supposition that they are compounded, and so discerptible. But, since consciousness is a single and indivisible power, it should seem that the subject in which it resides, must be so too. For were the motion of any particle of matter absolutely one and indivisible, so as that it should imply a contradiction to suppose part of this motion to exist, and part not to exist, i. c. part of this matter to move, and part to be at rest; then its power of motion would be indivisible; and so also would the subject in which the power inheres, namely, the particle of matter: for, if this could be divided into two, one part might be moved and the other at rest, which is contrary to the supposition. In like manner, it has been argued, * and for any thing appearing to the contrary, justly, that since the perception, or consciousness, which we have of our own existence is indivisible, so as that it is a contradiction to suppose one part of it should be here, and the other there; the perceptive power, or the power of consciousness, is indivisible too; and, consequently, the subject in which it resides, i. e. the conscious being. Now, upon supposition that living agent each man calls himself, is thus a single being, which there is at least no more difficulty in conceiving than in conceiving it to be a compound, and of which there is the proof now mentioned; it follows that our organized bodies are no more ourselves, or part of ourselves, than any other matter around us. And it is as easy

to conceive how matter which is no part of our

See Dr Clarke's Letter to Mr Dodwell, and the Defences

selves, may be appropriated to us in the manner which our present bodies are, as how we can receive impressions from, and have power over any matter. It is as easy to conceive, that we may exist out of bodies, as in them; that we might have animated bodies of any other organs and senses wholly different from these now given us, and that we may hereafter ani mate these same or new bodies variously modified and organized, as to conceive how we can animate such bodies as our present. And, lastly, the dissolution of all these several organized bodies, supposing ourselves to have successively animated them, would have no more conceivable tendency to destroy the living beings, ourselves, or deprive us of living faculties, the faculties of perception and of action, than the dissolution of any foreign matter, which we are capable of receiving impressions from, and making use of for the common occasions of life.

II. The simplicity and absolute oneness of a living agent cannot, indeed, from the nature of the thing, be properly proved by experimental observations. But as these fall in with the supposition of its unity, so they plainly lead us to conclude certainly, that our gross organized bodies, with which we perceive the objects of sense, and with which we act, are no part of ourselves, and therefore show us, that we have no reason to believe their destruction to be ours; even without determining whether our living substances be material or immaterial. For we see by experience, that men may lose their limbs, their organs of sense, and even the greatest part of these bodies, and yet remain the same living agents: And persons can trace up the existence of themselves to a time when the bulk of their bodies was extremely small, in comparison of what it is in mature age; and we cannot but think, that they might then have lost a considerable part of that small body, and yet have remained the same living agents, as they may now lose great part of their present body, and remain so. And it is certain, that the bodies of all animals are in a con

stant flux, from that never-ceasing attrition which. there is in every part of them. Now, things of this. kind unavoidably teach us to distinguish between these living agents, ourselves, and large quantities. of matter, in which we are very nearly interested : since these may be alienated, and actually are in a daily course of succession, and changing their owners; whilst we are assured that each living agent remains one and the same permanent being. * And this general observation leads us on to the following

ones.

First, That we have no way of determining by experience, what is the certain bulk of the living being each man calls himself; and yet, till it be determined that it is larger in bulk than the solid elementary particles of matter, which there is no ground to think any natural power can dissolve, there is no sort. of reason to think death to be the dissolution of it, of the living being, even although it should not be absolutely indiscerptible.

Secondly, From our being so nearly related to, and interested in certain systems of matter, suppose our. flesh and bones, and afterwards ceasing to be at all related to them, the living agents, ourselves, remaining all this while undestroyed, notwithstanding such alienation; and consequently these systems of matter. not being ourselves it follows further, that we have. no ground to conclude any other, suppose internal systems of matter, to be the living agents ourselves; because we can have no ground to conclude this, but from our relation to, and interest in, such other systems of matter: and therefore we can have no reason to conclude, what befalls those systems of matter at death, to be the destruction of the living agents. We have already, several times over, lost a great part, or perhaps the whole of our body, according to certain common established laws of nature; yet we

*See Dissertation I.

one case,

remain the same living agents: when we shall lose as great a part, or the whole, by another common established law of nature, death, why may we not also remain the same? That the alienation has been gradual in and in the other will be more at once, does not prove any thing to the contrary. We have passed undestroyed through those many and great revolutions of matter, so peculiarly appropriated to us ourselves; why should we imagine death will be so fatal to us? Nor can it be objected, that what is thus alienated, or lost, is no part of our original solid body, but only adventitious matter; because we may lose entire limbs, which must have contained many solid parts and vessels of the original body or if this be not admitted, we have no proof that any of these solid parts are dissolved or alienated by death; though, by the way, we are very nearly related to that extraneous or adventitious matter, whilst it continues united to and distending the several parts of our solid body. But, after all, the relation a person bears to those parts of his body to which he is the most nearly related, what does it appear to amount to but this, that the living agent and those parts of the body mutually affect each other? And the same thing, the same thing in kind, though not in degree, may be said of all foreign matter, which gives us ideas, and which we have any power over. From these observations the whole ground of the imagination is removed, that the dissolution of any matter is the destruction of a living agent, from the interest he once had in such matter.

Thirdly, If we consider our body somewhat more distinctly, as made up of organs and instruments of perception and of motion, it will bring us to the same conclusion. Thus, the common optical experiments show, and even the observation how sight is assisted by glasses shows, that we see with our eyes in the same sense as we see with glasses. Nor is there any reason to believe, that we see with them in any other sense; any other, I mean, which would lead us to think the eye itself a percipient. The like is to be