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PART fumptions of the Immortality of human I. Minds: I fay the greatest Part; for it is less applicable to the following Obfervation, which is more peculiar to Mankind:

III. That as it is evident our present Powers and Capacities of Reafon, Memory, and Affection, do not depend upon our grofs Body in the Manner in which Perception by our Organs of Senfe does; so they do not appear to depend upon it at all in any fuch Manner, as to give Ground to think, that the Diffolution of this Body, will be the Destruction of these our prefent Powers of Reflection, as it will of our Powers of Sensation; or to give Ground to conclude, even that it will be fo much as a Sufpenfion of the former.

Human Creatures exift at present in two States of Life and Perception, greatly different from each other; each of which has its own peculiar Laws, and its own peculiar Enjoyments and Sufferings. When any of our Senses are affected or Appetites gratified with the Objects of Them, we may be faid to exift or live in a State of Senfation. When none of our Senfes are affected or Appetites gratified, and yet we perceive and reafon and act; we may be faid to exift or live in a State of Reflection. Now it is by no means cer

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tain, that any thing which is diffolved by CHAP. Death, is any way neceffary to the living Being in this its State of Reflection, after Ideas are gained. For, though from our present Constitution and Condition of Being, our external Organs of Senfe are neceffary for conveying in Ideas to our reflecting Powers, as Carriages and Leavers and Scaffolds are in Architecture: yet when these Ideas are brought in, we are capable of reflecting in the most intense Degree, and of enjoying the greatest Pleasure and feeling the greatest Pain by Means of that Reflection, without any Affiftance from our Senfes; and without any at all, which we know of, from that Body, which will be diffolved by Death. It does not appear then, that the Relation of this grofs Body to the reflecting Being, is, in any Degree, neceffary to Thinking; to our intellectual Enjoyments or Sufferings: nor confequently, that the Diffolution or Alienation of the former by Death, will be the Destruction of those present Powers, which render us capable of this State of Reflection. Further, there are Inftances of mortal Diseases, which do not at all affect our present intellectual Powers; and this affords a Prefumption, that those Diseases will not deftroy these prefent Powers. Indeed, from the Obfervations made above, it appears, that there is no * p. 28, 29, 30. Prefump

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PART Presumption, from their mutually affecting each other, that the Diffolution of the Body is the Deftruction of the living Agent. And by the fame Reasoning, it must appear too, that there is no Prefumption, from their mutually affecting each other, that the Diffolution of the Body is the Deftruction of our prefent reflecting Powers: But Inftances of their not affecting each other, afford a Prefumption of the contrary. Inftances of mortal Difeafes not impairing our prefent reflecting Powers, evidently turn our Thoughts even from imagining fuch Diseases to be the Destruction of them. Several things indeed greatly affect all our living Powers, and at length fufpend the Exercise of them; as for Inftance Drowfinefs, increafing till it ends in found Sleep and from hence we might have imagined it would destroy them, till we found by Experience the Weakness of this Way of judging. But in the Diseases now mentioned, there is not fo much as this Shadow of Probability, to lead us to any fuch Conclufion, as to the reflecting Powers which we have at prefent. For in those Diseases, Persons the moment before Death appear to be in the highest Vigour of Life. They discover Apprehenfion, Memory, Reason, all entire ; with the utmoft Force of Affection; Senfe of a Character, of Shame and Honour; and the highest mental Enjoyments and Sufferings,

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even to the last Gafp: and these furely prove CHAP. even greater Vigour of Life than bodily I. Strength does. Now what Pretence is there r for thinking, that a progreffive Disease when arrived to fuch a Degree, I mean that Degree which is mortal, will deftroy thofe Powers, which were not impaired, which were not affected by it, during its whole Progrefs quite up to that Degree? And if Death by Diseases of this Kind, is not the Deftruction of our prefent reflecting Powers, it will scarce be thought that Death by any other Means is.

It is obvious that this general Obfervation may be carried on further: and there appears fo little Connection between our bodily Powers of Senfation, and our present Powers of Reflection, that there is no Reason to conclude, that Death, which destroys the former, does fo much as fufpend the Exercise of the latter, or interrupt our continuing to exist in the like State of Reflection which we do now. For Suspension of Reason, Memory, and the Affections which they excite, is no Part of the Idea of Death, nor is implied in our Notion of it. And our daily experiencing these Powers to be exercifed, without any Affiftance, that we know of, from thofe Bodies, which will be diffolved by Death; and our finding often, that the Exercise of them is fo lively to the laft; thefe Things afford a D 4 fenfible

PART fenfible Apprehenfion, that Death may not I. perhaps be so much as a Difcontinuance of the Exercise of these Powers, nor of the Enjoyments and Sufferings which it implies f. So that our pofthumous Life, whatever there may be in it additional to our present, yet may not be entirely beginning anew; but going on. Death may, in fome Sort, and in fome Refpects, anfwer to our Birth; which is not a Sufpenfion of the Faculties which we had before it, or a total Change of the State of Life in which we existed when in the Womb; but a Continuation of both, with fuch and fuch great Alterations.

Nay, for ought we know of Ourselves, of our prefent Life and of Death; Death may immediately, in the natural Course of Things, put us into a higher and more enlarged State of Life, as our Birth does ; a State in which

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f There are three diftinct Questions, relating to a future Life, here confidered: Whether Death be the Destruction of living Agents; If not, Whether it be the Deftruction of their prefent Powers of Reflection, as it certainly is the Deftruction of their prefent Powers of Senfation; And if not, Whether it be the Sufpenfion, or Difcontinuance of the Exercise, of these prefent reflecting Powers. Now if there be no Reason to believe the laft, there will be, if that were poffible, less for the next, and less still for the first.

This according to Strabo was the Opinion of the Brachmans, νομίζειν μὲν τὰ δὴ τὸ μὲν ενθάδε βίον, ὡς ἂν ἀκμὴν κυομένων εἶναι· τ - θάνατον, γένεσιν εἰς ὃ ὄντως βίον, καὶ ὶ εὐδαίμονα τοῖς G1200oPhoaos Lib. XV. p. 1039. Ed, Amft. 1707. To which

Opinion

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