ship, and by their using their morais
as places of worship, they acknowledge a fellowship with them in
something that death cannot destroy. The philosopher of modern times may
say this is foolish, and may call for evidence that the notion of
immortality is not groundless. It is perhaps impossible to satisfy him,
because, in fact, he demands of reason what it is not the province of
reason to afford. The notion is founded on other principles of the
constitution which God has imparted to man, and these principles rebut
all the sophistry of the presumptuous sciolist. Is it true, that this
notion prevails universally among the human race? Let him answer to
this. He must admit it;--let him then explain it, if he can. Reason, he
will say, is incompetent to the task.--Admitted. But so is it to many
other tasks--it cannot, for instance, solve the question, why we believe
the sun will rise to-morrow and dispel the darkness now cloaking over
the horizon? The hope that it will do so, is nevertheless very natural.
Who shall say it is improper, or that it is founded on the mere fancy of
man? Reason indeed may strengthen the ground of this hope, and so may it
too the notion of a future existence. But they both rest on foundations
quite distinct from that faculty, and might, for any thing can be seen
to the contrary, have formed part of our moral constitution, although
that faculty had never existed in our minds. And here let it be
distinctly understood, that in stating the notion or expectation of a
future existence to be founded on some principle or principles separate
from reason, and the same in all the human race, it is not meant to be
denied that the mere opinions as to the nature and condition of that
existence may have no other foundation whatever than what Mr Hume, for
instance, has ascribed erroneously to the notion itself--men's own
conceit and imagination. This in fact is the secret of that writer's
vile sophistry on the subject, and at once confutes it, by proving the
inapplicability of his argument. All that is now contended for, is, the
universality of the notion or belief, not by any means the similarity of
the opinions connected with it. These opinions are as numerous, indeed,
as the characteristic features of different nations and governments; but
were they a thousand times more diversified than they are ascertained to
be, and a thousand times more contradictory and absurd, they still
recognise some instinctive or const