“Then, as to the soul’s existence after being separated from the body. Let us only consider how unreasonably we argue, when we confound the mental and corporeal functions, simply because we see them combined. Analogy here also is against such reasoning. A spark of electricity or galvanism is only rendered _apparent_ to the eye by certain circumstances. As long as these subtle fluids pass quietly through conductors, they are wholly invisible, and pervade the earth and atmosphere entirely unseen: yet we doubt not the existence of electricity and magnetism, because they float invisibly in æther. We never doubt the existence of the sun’s light, though the substitution of a wooden block for a transparent window of glass shall totally obstruct his rays. These are mere analogies; but they are in our favour. We see the operations of the spirit through the means of our bodily organs, as we perceive the light of the sun through glass, which is so constituted as to transmit its beams to our senses; but we have no more right to confound the vehicle, or medium, with the matter of light, or the power of thought, conveyed in the one case than in the other. Will you call me fanciful if I say that I consider all intellectual energy, all that we denominate _soul_, as emanating from divinity; and I find no more difficulty _now_ in imagining a certain portion of this divine principle arrested and concentrated in the organic structure which we call man, than I find in collecting the sun’s rays in a burning glass or a prism. “Mingling with the dross incident to a temporary junction with the base particles of matter, the spirit partakes of the feculence of the channel through which it permeates (if you will permit me to use the language of metaphor), just as the rays of the sun are broken, refracted, or reflected by the cloudy atmosphere, or shattered glass, through which they pass. Remove the medium, and the emancipated essence regains its source; with this difference, that while the light, which is only material, the magnetism and electricity, which are unconscious forces, recover all their purity with their liberated expansion, the soul of man, on which the boon of immortality is conferred,--the soul which shall not be extinguished like that splendid orb that illumines our nether sphere shall receive its final billet, and be admitted into one or the other of two classes of spiritualized existence, _according_ to the use which has been made during its sojournment in the body, of _free will_, bestowed upon the human species at its creation.”