PART as easy to conceive, how Matter, which is I. no Part of ourselves, may be appropriated to us in the Manner which our present Bodies are; as how we can receive Impreffions from, and have Power over any Matter. It is as eafy to conceive, that we may exift out of Bodies, as in them that we might have animated Bodies of any other Organs and Senfes wholly different from these now given us, and that we may hereafter animate these fame or new Bodies variously modified and organized; as to conceive how we can animate fuch Bodies as our present. And lastly, the Diffolution of all these several organized Bodies, fuppofing ourselves to have fucceffively 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 Diffolution of any foreign Matter, which we are capable of receiving Impreffions from, and making use of for the common Occasions of Life.

II. The Simplicity and abfolute Oneness of a living Agent cannot indeed, from the Nature of the thing, be properly proved by experimental Obfervations. But as thefe fall in with the Suppofition of its Unity, fo they plainly lead us to conclude certainly, that our grofs organized Bodies, with which we perceive the Objects

Objects of Senfe, and with which we act, are CHAP. no Part of ourselves; and therefore show us, I. that we have no Reason to believe Their De-U ftruction to be Ours: even without determining whether our living Subftances be material or immaterial. For we fee by Experience, that Men may lose their Limbs, their Organs of Sense, and even the greatest Part of these Bodies, and yet remain the fame living Agents. And Perfons can trace up the Exiftence of themfelves 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 loft a confiderable Part of that fmall Body, and yet have remained the fame living Agents; as they may now lose great Part of their prefent Body, and remain fo. And it is certain, that the Bodies of all Animals are in a conftant Flux, from that neverceafing 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: fince these may be alienated, and actually are in a daily Courfe of Succeffion, and changing their Owners; whilst we are affured, that each living Agent remains one and the fame permanent Being. And this

See Differtation I.

gene

PAR T general Obfervation leads us on to the followI. ing ones.

First, That we have no Way of determining by Experience, what is the certain Bulk of the living Being each man calls himfelf: and yet, till it be determined that it is larger in Bulk than the folid elementary Particles of Matter, which there is no Ground to think any natural Power can diffolve, there is no fort of Reafon to think Death to be the Diffolution of it, of the living Being, even though it should not be abfolutely indifcerptible.

Secondly, From our being fo nearly related to and interested in certain Systems of Matter, fuppofe our Flesh and Bones, and afterwards ceafing to be at all related to them, the living Agents ourfelves remaining all this while undestroyed notwithstanding fuch Alienation; and confequently thefe Systems of Matter not being Ourselves: it follows further, that we have no Ground to conclude any other, fuppofe internal Syftems of Matter, to be the living Agents Ourselves; because we can have no Ground to conclude This, but from our Relation to and Intereft in fuch other Systems of Matter: and therefore we can have no Reafon to conclude, what befalls thofe Systems of Matter at Death, to be the

De

Destruction of the living Agents. We have CHAP. already feveral Times over loft a great Part or I. perhaps the whole of our Body, according to certain common established Laws of Nature; yet we remain the fame living Agents: When we shall lofe as great a Part, or the whole, by another common established Law of Nature, Death; why may we not alfo remain the fame? That the Alienation has been gradual in one Case, and in the other will be more at once, does not prove any thing to the contrary. We have paffed undestroyed through those many and great Revolutions of Matter, fo peculiarly appropriated to us ourselves; why should we imagine Death will be fo fatal to us? Nor can it be objected, that what is thus alienated or loft, is no Part of our original folid Body, but only adventitious Matter; because we may lofe intire Limbs, which must have contained many folid Parts and Veffels of the original Body: or if this be not admitted, we have no Proof, that any of these folid Parts are diffolved 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 diftending the several Parts of our folid Body. But after all; the Relation a Perfon 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

PART Parts of the Body, mutually affect each ơI. ther? And the fame thing, the fame thing in WKind though not in Degree, may be faid of

S

all foreign Matter, which gives us Ideas, and which we have any Power over. From these Obfervations the whole Ground of the Imagination is removed, that the Diffolution of any Matter, is the Destruction of a living Agent, from the Interest he once had in fuch Matter.

Thirdly, If we confider our Body fomewhat more diftinctly, as made up of Organs and Inftruments of Perception and of Motion, it will bring us to the fame Conclufion. Thus the common optical Experiments show, and even the Observation how Sight is affifted by Glaffes fhows, that we fee with our Eyes in the fame Senfe as we fee with Glaffes. Nor is there any Reason to believe, that we fee with them in any other Senfe; any other, I mean, which would lead us to think the Eye itself a Percipient. The like is to be faid of Hearing: and our Feeling distant folid Matter by means of fomewhat in our Hand, feems an Inftance of the like Kind, as to the Subject we are confidering. All these are Inftances of foreign Matter, or fuch as is no Part of our Body, being inftrumental in paring Objects for, and conveying them to, the perceiving Power, in a Manner fimilar or like

pre

to