constitution of things concerning death or the dissolution of our bodily frame? In order to determine which question, we need only state the phenomenon in a true light. And thus it stands. “We are by nature excellently equipped and furnished for attaining to a very considerable degree of moral perfection, or of knowledge and virtue by the due culture of our natural endowments; and are placed in a very proper situation for that effect, even by having relation to, and communion with the sensible world by means of our bodies: but our bodies are made liable to dissolution: they are not made to endure for ever; but must wear out, and may be destroyed while they are yet sound and vigorous, by different kinds of violence, in consequence of their structure and subjection to the laws of matter and motion.” This is the truth of the case. What judgment then is it reasonable to form of this phenomenon, or of this state and tendency of things with regard to mankind?
Futurity is wisely hid from us.
Futuritya is wisely hid from us; it is not fit that infants should know whether they are to live to<228> old age and foresee the fortunes of their lives: In general, it is not fit for us to know such good or bad accidents as are to happen us in consequence of the laws of the sensible world, or our social connexions which are in the nature of things unavoidable.
Prudens futuri temporis exitum,
Caliginosa nocte premit Deus. 81
Or as our own Poet has it,
Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib’d, their present state,
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know,
Or who could suffer being here below?
Oh! blindness to the future! kindly giv’n,
That each may fill the circle mark’d by heav’n.
Essay on man, Epist. 182
We know, or may know enough of the settled order and succession of things for the regulation of our conduct, that is, for the common exigencies of natural life, and for avoiding the bad consequences of folly and vice, and reaping the good fruits of prudence and virtue; and that, it is evident, is all the foresight which is convenient, or can be pleasant to us, and therefore our duty and business is as the Poet expresses it.
—Quod adest memento
Componere aequus. 83
Yet we have reason to infer that death is not a dissolution of our moral powers.
It is not analogous to our make to suppose that it is.
Now for the same wise reasons that future events in this present life are hid from us, the particular events which are to happen to us after death; that is, the various scenes or changes of being we may be intended to pass through after leaving this state, are likewise beyond our forecast. But tho’ our future state cannot be fully foreseen by us, because such knowledge would neither be agreeable nor convenient for us;<229> yet from the present state, we may infer very probably that death is not a total dissolution of our moral powers and their acquirements, but that these do survive our bodies. Because, 1. The dissolution of our bodies is no more than putting an end to our communication with the sensible world, or to one kind of ideas we now receive from without, and the order in which they are conveyed into our minds; and therefore, there can be no reason to infer from hence the total dissolution of all powers. 2. Because this state is but our entrance on life, and having all the appearances of a proper first state of enjoyment, or rather of trial and discipline, for rational beings; it is natural to conclude, that it is but our first state of probation, and not the whole of our existence. 3. Because the ideas of wisdom and good order, which are natural to the human mind, or to which we are led by the consideration of the present state of things wherever we cast our eyes; and in the perswasion of the prevalence of which throughout the universal system, we must be the more confirmed, the more we examine nature, or the fuller view we are able to take of it: All these considerations give us good ground to hope, that beings endowed with such powers as men are, which may survive one method of enjoyment and exercise, were not made to be wilfully destroyed; or are not so totally subjected to the laws of matter and motion, that they cannot subsist any longer than these laws take place. We may indeed fairly put the issue of the question about our future existence upon this footing. “Whether it be more probable, that is, more analogous and consistent with the preceeding account of our make to imagine that we are made with moral powers, merely for the entertainments and exercises which we are capable of receiving from a sensible world by our bodies for the short while they only can last; or that it is but our first state of trial, and to be succeeded by another such existence as good order and wisdom<230> in the whole requires?” For surely, if in what we have seen, by enquiring strictly into our constitution, nothing but good order and perfect contrivance and harmony appear, there can be no reason to apprehend that disorder, far less, that cruel destruction, or wilful annihilation, ever can happen under such a wise and benevolent administration, as the present frame of things strongly and clearly bespeaks.
It is proper to consider this matter more fully.
But in order to set an affair, of such consequence to the quiet and satisfaction of every thinking person, in a true light, I would offer the following observations, which are but so many corollaries evidently resulting from the account that hath been given of human nature, and of the general laws to which all the effects and appearances belonging to it are reducible.
Our present connexion with a sensible world by means of our bodies, is arbitrary, not necessary.
We may therefore survive such a connexion.
Our perishing totally with it, must be the effect of an arbitrary appointment that it shall be so.
I. We have a thinking part that receives our sensible ideas from without, or upon which they are impressed, according to certain laws. It is not, as ancient philosophers have said,a the eyes, or the<231> ears, or any of our outward senses (properly speaking) which perceive: these are only certain methods<232> or orders, according to which, certain sensations are produced in us. Our thinking part therefore, which is properly ourself, is absolutely distinct from all these sensations which it receives from without. And what follows from thence, but that there can be no natural or necessary connexion between the subsistence of our thinking part, and its having its present sensations from without. But if this be true, then may it not only survive the prevalence of the order in which our present sensations are conveyed to us; but it cannot otherwise perish, when that order ceases to take place, than in consequence of a positive appointment of nature that our minds should not survive such an order. I need not dwell long upon this head, since it is owned by all philosophers that our present communication with a sensible world, according to the laws of which sensible ideas are produced in our minds, is but an arbitrary connexion. For if this be true, it must necessarily follow, that our minds might have existed without any such communication, and may subsist when it no longer takes place. Nay, it must follow, that as the present connexion between our thinking part and a sensible world, by means of our bodily organization, is but an arbitrary connexion; so if we are totally destroyed when our communication with a sensible world by means of our bodies is at an end, that must likewise be the effect of as positive and arbitrary an institution, as our present connexion with a sensible world is. But what reason is there to fear such a destroying will or humour in nature?
There is no reason to apprehend such an annihilating or destroying humour in nature.
The
