another at first; but may become acts by transfer. If e. g. a man should be rapt to the third heaven (Cor. II. xii. 2), which must needs be out of the body, as the kingdom of heaven is within,-this transition would be properly an act with the raptor, and an accident with the rapt at first; being made also in the same instant an act of the latter, v. g., a rapture; by repetition, exquisite delight, or the property of rapturous enjoyment.

It may be thought by some, that man, the principal subject of the kingdom incarnate is rather undervalued in having first himself identified with his own life, and next his life with its own accidents, and worst of all, some of these with the most enduring part of it, as aforesaid*: but there would be no difficulty in proving this immediately, if it were required; nor yet in proving too, that of what a man calls peculiarly his own life, a very considerable part, if not the whole, is only borrowed, while death comes to him by inheritance. The idea of such an order as life producing, and not consisting of acts or accidents, is a philosophical reverie, as much as, on the other hand, that of a principle consisting in its effects, or THE VITAL PRINCIPLE in that which it creates. And philosophers, if they had known or considered this simple fact, might have saved themselves the trouble of looking, as many have done, for a property that never had any earthly being, except in their imagination, which is earthly enough sometimes. Indeed, our lives severally considered, do not amount to any thing like what has now been conceded. It may be questioned, whether a single life be any thing more than one among others, and nothing alone: a concurrent relation of existence wrought into others, like a ring in a coat of mail, or like a circle en circling and intersecting others upon a common disk, which is the sum of life. It is a round or succession of accidents, by which their subjects are formed, and of which they consist in the manner before described: so

that its doing and suffering, or acting and being acted upon, will constitute one life among others; or a part of the common life that is formed or protracted by moral agents from beginning to end, in doing and suffering any how.

And hence in the thing itself, i. e., in the substance of life, however it may be considered, we shall find no essential difference; whatever difference may be found in its characteristics, or in its results, or in its circumstances, being also the circumstances of its subjects. "For," says the philosophical as well as royal preacher," that which be falleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence over a beast. For all is vanity" (Eccl. iii. 19). AND SUCH IS THEIR COMMON EXISTENCE. But if the general state or relation of life be uniform in itself, it will exhibit different effects in different modes or combinations; as the same light exhibits different colours in different mediums. To exemplify this in one respect:-The same life which in water is mere fluidity, in earth is elective attraction; in stones and other minerals, assimilation by specific gravity; in vegetables, the same by mechanism; in brute beasts, the same by instinct; in rational creatures, the same by moral affinity; and that still differing with its directing force, and according to its different associations. And so this simple constituent assimilating, or being assimilated to evil by an evil affinity, is the death of sin; assimilated to good by a good, it is the life of righteousness, even life eternal.

In short, the simple constitution, or general state and relation of life, if it be always essentially the same, v. g. by accidents, &c. combined as aforesaid, will differ, however, specifically in different combinations, circles or modes of existence; and not more in different minerals and herbs, than in different animals that we know ; as the wolf and the lamb, the kite and the dove, for example; and at different times in the same kind, and in the same creature; as we find by

experience. For doing differently, or as we say, different modes of doing, or only the same constituent modes with different circumstances or incidentals, will make different lives, or differences in the same; as life consists in living, and living in doing and suffering. But to proceed regularly with the form of life related in the kingdom of God as aforesaid:

§ 2. The second order of constituents in point of simplicity, and first in its degree of complexity, was said to be that of Properties, whether

Of which the first sort have been considered and shown, to be no part of the subject to which they belong; but the second to be its whole, comprehended under that degree of complexity which, besides taking its proper turn, will also deserve a more detailed view than the higher degrees of elements, parts, &c., for several reasons, and especially as it combines the advantages of the several classes on either hand for discussion, being more sensible than accidents, and more tractable than elements, parts, or any other combination before mentioned. And first their own properties, the properties of properties, will deserve consideration, being such as these, namely, 1, their latency; 2, their circumscription; 3, perpetuity, e. g.,

In the first place, properties being composed of acts as aforesaid, we cannot imagine such a property as rest in any of them, however real in itself, without an essential contradiction: for that were both to be and not to be at

once.

But a reaction of the different properties in a subject might be supposed; and by that means, while properties of every sort were active in operation, they might still be neuter in effect; or they might still continue properties, notwithstanding their temporary, and oftentimes permanent latency.

This Latency of properties, through the effect of reaction

or counterposition, is a very remarkable property in them, and not more on other accounts than for its importance in reconciling the doctrine of the constitution of properties by acts, and of subjects by properties, to our experience. But, as the observation of the said latency and reaction is rather new, we must not expect to find a proper term for either in common use. Working, however, appears the most scriptural term for one of these, and Letting for the other as e. g. where St. Paul speaks of the evil lurking in the moral world from the period of its introduction to this time, and its suppression or hindrance by a contrary principle; that, as "the old man" (Eph. iv. 22, &c.), "the man of sin," "shewing himself, that he is God" (Thess. II. ii. 4); this, as "the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness" (Eph. iv. 24). "And now ye know what withholdeth, (says he,) that he (v. g. the man of sin) might be revealed in his time: For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way," &c. (Thess. II. ii. 6, 7). Therefore, if any one would rather, he may understand working in this predicament, i. e. when let or repressed by something in the way, for latency, and such letting, for reaction. But,

Secondly, At the same time, that no rest nor intermission can be conceived in any property of a subject, as long as it exists or continues, a total cessation of the same, with all its kindred properties, its oppositions and connexions, may easily be conceived by the effect of the property's second named property of Circumscription. For the constituent acts of every subject, or the properties which they compose, will continue always, and active too, though it may be latent as aforesaid; but only efficient as long as their proper compliment, crasis and mode shall continue. Every constituent property is nicely poised, measured and arranged in its sphere or subject, and its acts or simple constituents are all exactly numbered, which is what makes their circumscription: and a consequence is, that

they may all, or any of them, end in this manner; failing naturally, exhausted by repetition, running as it were to the end of their allowance, and perhaps yielding to some rival or antagonist. Thus, gratification gone, loathing takes place or the same may happen to desire, before gratification, as e. g. in the horrid case of hydrophobia, where a feverish thirst departing, yields to an agonizing dread of fluids.

One should almost think it might be enough to cure a drunkard, a glutton or any other sensualist of his heedless self indulgence, or a pryer of his curiosity, or an idler of his idleness, if he was fully aware of this fact, a fact that seems to have become proverbial in the latter case*-as through such abuse not only the natural appetite, but the hearing or any other sense, and the judgment or any other faculty as well, may cease prematurely, or take their departure more leisurably, first, the other senses and faculties, as they are called, still continuing; then these, the breath perhaps continuing; or these perhaps after the breath: but in either case, the breath will cease at last, the material properties of the subject still continuing; until these likewise begin to take their leave of each other-and first the colour, then the figure will be detached from its subject and remaining associates: then another property, and another; as gravitation, elective or specific attraction, &c., till a perfect dissolution has overtaken them, and no two properties are left together of the whole body, mass, subject, or assemblage. Or the constituents may go more rapidly; and not merely by single properties, but by companies or squadrons, and be all obliged to seek for other quarters like an army disbanded, or dispersed. Elements and even parts may be served after this rate by their antagonists; as implied in that query of our Saviour to his disciples and the multitude, "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own

v.g. Idleness is not worth a pin, unless it be well followed," i. e. to satiety or exhaustion.