It was not only a proper question, but a necessary one. Butler wisely says--"This is that kind of Presumption or Probability from Analogy, expressed in the very word CONTINUANCE, which seems our only natural reason for believing the course of the world will continue to-morrow, as it has done so far as our experience or knowledge of history can carry us back." I give you, here, the Bishop's very words--and I believe that in them is affirmed a truth that no scepticism can shake. TALBOYS. If I mistake not, sir, the Bishop here frankly admits, that were we not fortified against a natural impression, with some better instruction than unreflecting Nature's, the spontaneous disposition of our Mind would undoubtedly be to an expectation that in this great catastrophe of our mortal estate, We Ourselves must perish; but he contends--does he not, sir?--that it would be a blind fear, and without rational ground. NORTH. Yes--that it is an impression of the illusory faculty, Imagination, and not an inference of Reason. There would arise, he says, "a general confused suspicion, that in the great shock and alteration which we shall undergo by death, We, _i.e._ our living Powers, might be wholly destroyed;"--but he adds solemnly, "there is no particular distinct ground or reason for this apprehension, so far as I can find." TALBOYS. Such "general confused suspicion," then, is not justified? NORTH. Butler holds that any justifying ground of the apprehension that, in the shock of death, I, the living Being, or, which is the same thing, These my powers of acting, enjoying, and suffering, shall be extinguished and cease, must be found either in "the reason of the Thing" itself, or in "the Analogy of Nature." To say that a legitimate ground of attributing to the sensible mortal change a power of extinguishing the inward life is to be found in the Reason of the Thing, is as much as to say, that when considering the essential nature of this great and tremendous, or at least dreaded change, Death, and upon also considering _what_ these powers of acting, of enjoying, of suffering, truly _are_, and _in what manner_, absolutely, they subsist in us--there does appear to lie therein demonstration, or evidence, or likelihood, that the change, Death, will swallow up such living Powers--and that _We_ shall no longer _be_. TALBOYS. In short, sir, that from considering _what_ Death is, and _upon what_ these Powers and their exercise depend, there is _reason_ to think, that the Powers or their exercise will or _must_ cease with Death. NORTH. The very point. And the Bishop's answer is bold, short, and decisive. We cannot _from_ considering what Death is, draw this or any other conclusion, _for we do not know what Death is_! We know only certain effects of Death--the stopping of certain sensible actions--the dissolution of certain sensible parts. We can draw no conclusion, for we do not possess the premises. SEWARD.