Let you and I enjoy ourselves, and be carelefs about what is to happen hereafter: for God will create fome Spirit, who will be chaftifed hereafter for the faults we now commit. To your refurrection, then, may be applied what Tully faid of the creed of fome philofophers of his time:" Verbis ponunt, re tollunt Deos." You acknowledge it in words: you deny it in reality.

But the gentleman returns to the charge, and attacks the fpirituality of the foul on three grounds: first, because matter cannot be put in motion by a fpirit: fecondly, the foul follows the difpofition of the body; whereas, in fleep, drunkennefs, palfy, infancy, &c. it has not the exercife or use of reason: thirdly, he has recourse to the infinite power of God, who can add thought to matter; and fummons to his affiftance, the brute creation, to which he attributes a foul of the fame identical nature with the foul of man; though perhaps in an inferior degree of perfection; and concludes, that, as the foul of man and the foul of the brute are of the fame nature, they both perish alike. He is fo confident of the truth of this doctrine, that he affirms "Solomon and fir Ifaac Newton

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to be no more than the production of what "their fathers eat," and deplores our blindnefs for having been deceived by the school

men,

men, whofe cunning has first introduced this notion of immortality.

We shall not dwell long upon the nature of Solomon and fir Ifaac's fouls, which, certainly, must have been made of the moft refined and fublimated particles of matter. Old Scriblerus feems to have entertained the fame opinion with the doctor *; for he would not permit his child Martinus's nurfe to eat any roaft beef or heavy aliments, left his fon fhould become too beavy and dull. Hence, his choice of Attic and Roman dishes, in order that their juices fhould impregnate his fon with the valour and elegance of the ancients.

The doctor would oblige us, if he informed the public, of the quality and quantity of food ufed by king David. We would foon have numbers of Solomons. Manifold would be the advantages accruing to fociety, from fuch a difcovery. Inftead of losing most of our time in colleges, the outlines of the plan of education fuitable to the clergyman, the statesman, the lawyer, could be sketched in the kitchen, and completed at table. The beau and belle fhould feed on butterflies. Calves-feet jellies would qualify the courtier and petit maitre for making a flexible and graceful bow. I believe that the harshness

See Martinus Scriblerus. Chapter of nutrition.

1

harfhnefs and acrimony of religious difputes, controverfial writings, and anniversary fermons, proceed from the great quantity of black pudding and mustard, which our polemical divines eat at their breakfafts. And if we knew the Spoon-meat, with which the doctor was fed, we would know the olio requifite to make a philo-. fopher who unravels the fecrets of nature and religion.

But (to return to the objections), you fay, "that matter cannot be put in motion by a fpirit." Who is it that established the world by his wifdom, and stretched out the Heavens by his understanding? A Spirit. Who hanged the earth upon nothing, and weighed the mountains in fcales, and the hills in a balance? A Spirit. Who cloathed the face of the earth with flowers, and "placed the fand for the bounds of the fea? A Spirit,

1

Matter, then, and the whole frame of mature, were put in motion by a spiritual agent, otherwife, they would never exift: for they could never have created themselves. The fame agent can unite a fpiritual foul to a material: fubftance, in order to impel, actuate, move, and diffuse a vital influence through the dormant and unwieldy mafs.

" But

"But does not the foul follow the difpofi"tions of the body ?" Moft certainly. It is ignorant in children; ripens into maturity and. judgment, in proportion to our advances to perfection; is in its full vigour, when we attain to our perfect growth; declines with age; and finks into a fluggish torpor, when the body is encumbered with years, and worn with longevity. In an apoplexy, palfy, drunkenness, fleep, &c. its powers are fufpended.,

Such is the general rule: yet to this general rule there are many and extraordinary exceptions: people, encumbered with years, reafoning, at the hour of their diffolution, in the most fublime and pathetic ftrain: the foul's vigour increafing in proportion as the body decayed: as the prifoner feels himself more light and active in proportion as his chains are taking off: children at the age of feven, demonftrating Euclid's propofitions without the help of a master, and with feeble conftitutions compofing books, and bearing away the palm of erudition, before. they attained to the age of eleven.

In fleep itself, when the fenfes are locked, and the body is configned over, as it were, to the arms of death, in what active scenes doth not the foul appear? The ftudent, who, when awake, could not leap two yards, nor compofe his theme, is feen, in a profound fleep, fly, like

one

one of the feathered tribe, out at his window; climb, without affiftance of rope or ladder, to the roof of a towering building; arrange, by the light of the moon, his figures of rhetoric; go through all the rules of amplification; defcend with the fame eafe that he went up; lay his piece of eloquence on his desk. In the morning, he knows his hand-writing; but cannot believe himself the author of fuch an elaborate compofition.

But, however difficult it may appear, that a fpiritual and active fubftance fhould be obftructed in its operations, the difficulty vanishes, when we reflect, that the closest connexion fubfifts between foul and body; and that the Creator of all things has ordained their acting in concert, during our fhort pilgrimage here on carth.

Ignorance in children, and ftupidity in old people, arife from the infertion of an active and fpiritual fubftance, in matter not fitly difpofed, and yet ordained to be its organ and inftrument. The brain is too moift in children, and too dry in old people: confequently, unapt either for the reception or retention of the images tranfmitted from exterior objects: which images or reprefentations are the materials for the foul to work on. The pencil cannot delineate well, if the canvas be unfit.

Letters