every movement of time, which has elapsed from Adam down to the present hour, must have had its influence in an equal manner, upon all the individuals of the human race, who have ever lived, or shall live to the latest periods of time. All, therefore, in the natural process will be alike prepared; and will be equally ready when the trumpet shall sound, to start forth at once into life and immortality.

The short interval of life, I consider of no moment, when compared to that stupendous range of time which reaches from creation, down to the day of judgment. It can be no more than a single point, which loses itself in the vast abyss with which it is connected. The importance of time can only be estimated from its connection with moral action. As it stands in relation to the grand process of that germinating principle, which shall be the stamen of our future bodies in eternity; it can be but as the minutest drop to the unbounded ocean, or as an insensible atom on the shore. It may, nevertheless, be a necessary and a constituent part of the great process itself, through which we must pass; and even the inequalities of the duration of human life, may be as necessary as life itself, to form and complete the minute parts of the amazing whole.

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SECTION III.

The Objections against the Idea of a Germ, as constituting the Identity of the Body hereafter, no Argument against its Certainty. Several Objections considered. Several Changes of our Bodies highly probable.

We have already seen in some of the preceding sections, the difficulties which obstruct our progress in the various suppositions which we have formed. We are fully satisfied that a principle of identity must exist; but that which constitutes it, is not so easy to explore. We have already considered those suppositions, which place the identity of the body in all the particles which were deposited in the grave; and we have been led to obstacles which are not only insurmountable, but big with absurdities of the grossest nature. The same or similar obstructions have presented themselves before us in that supposition, which places the identity of the body in the greatest number of particles indiscriminately taken, either at the moment of the interment of the body, or at any previous period of life. The certainty of the principle obliges us to explore another region; and we are driven to some immoveable stamen as our last resort.

Whatever it may be, which constitutes the indentity of the body, it must be a something which retains an immoveable permanency in the midst of

fluctuation; and continues the same through all those changes which the body is destined to undergo. Nothing, therefore, can be so congenial to the case before us as the supposition which we now make; that some radical particles must be fixed within us, which constitute our sameness through 'all the mutations of life; and which, remaining in a state of incorruptibility, shall put forth a germinating power beyond the grave, and be the germ of our future bodies.

Of the term itself, a definition has been already given; and I now proceed to examine the principal objections by which it is opposed., It has been said, that, "if in the present life, we suppose the identity of the body to be lodged in any given number of immoveable particles; a part must then constitute the whole, which is an evident absurdity."

That a theory which makes a part to constitute a whole must necessarily be erroneous, I am willing to allow; because the supposition includes a contradiction. But, that such absurdities will follow, from the supposition and premises before us; is to me neither clear nor satisfactory. On the contrary, the objection which has been started will not apply. to the case in hand; but to subjects with which our inquiry has little or no connection.

The subject before us is not an inquiry into the constituent parts of the human body; but into its identity. It is not its numerical particles, but the sameness of personality. These are distinct ideas, and can only have in this view, a distant connection with one another. The numerical particles, of

which our bodies are composed, are in a state of perpetual flux; but since sameness of person remains under every change which these numerical particles undergo, it plainly follows, that that in which sameness consists, must remain immoveable also; and hence it follows, that those particles which constitute the whole body, and the identity of that body, must necessarily be distinct from one another. For certain it is, that if the sameness of the body consisted in all the numerical particles of which that body was composed, sameness must be capable of a transfer; and, consequently, must be destroyed by the supposition which we are obliged thus to admit, that the identity of the body must not only be compatible with those changes which the body perpetually undergoes; but must be lodged in some secret recess which these changes cannot reach.

Having thus two distinct ideas, one of the identity of the body, and the other of the component or numerical parts of which the body is formed, we can plainly perceive that the latter may change, while the former remains perfect and entire; and the reason is, because the former is not dependent upon the latter for its existence. It therefore follows, that the admission of an inherent principle, which shall become a germ of future life, having only a remote connection with these floating particles which occasionally form the body, cannot include within it that contradiction which the objection has supposed. For, if to admit a germ or principle of identity, will oblige us to admit that a

part must contain or comprehend a whole, then no such distinct ideas can possibly be formed as those which have been pointed out. The objection itself is founded upon a supposition, that the identity of the body must consist in the numerical particles, of which the whole mass is evidently composed. One of these two points must therefore, be given up ;either that which makes a part to comprehend a whole, which is the amount of the objection, or that which supposes the identity of the body to remain, amidst the changes which its numerical parts undergo, because they are incompatible with each

other. But, as the latter of these points is founded upon fact, and the former which is included in the objection upon theory; as the latter is founded upon ocular demonstration, and the former is only speculatively probable ;-as the latter can appeal to visible proof in the growth and changes which are conspicuous in the human body, and the former can only appeal to abstract hypothesis; it is certain, I think, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the nu

Their incompatability arises from this consideration : The contradiction, which the objection supposes, can only be admitted to exist, while we suppose the identity of the body to be lodged in all its numerical parts. The very instant that we suppose a distinction between the numerical particles at large, and that principal, or germ, in which identity consists; that very instant we destroy the contradiction which has been supposed, and reconcile our own views with those suppositions which have been made. And therefore, because the identity of the body is not presumed to extend to the whole mass; it cannot be charged with a contradiction, which on account of distinction is rendered inconsistent with its nature.