If thought be the entire effect of material form, and excellent thought of excellent form, as these philosophers seem to suppose, it follows that the more excellent the body is the more excellent will be the mind. But facts shew the contrary. The goose, which sometimes appears in elegant human form, we despise; while we admire the fables of Æsop and the sublime verse of that poet, who was told what is the mark of interrogation. “But although the externals of body may be deformed, yet the internals of it may be well organized and refined.” What says the anatomist respecting the ourang outang? “Not only the externals, but the internals of his body resemble those of man, particularly the tongue and the brain. There appears no difference between them; yet the animal is dumb and has not so much sagacity even to provide for herself as the elephant or the beaver.” However certain laws and dispensations of Divine Providence, accommodated to the rude apprehensions of mankind in early ages, punished the posterity of sinners; yet it is one of the first dictates of reason as well as of a better covenant, that justice does not require any person to be rewarded or punished for the virtues or vices of another.[1] If soul and body die together; if all intelligence and cogitation cease from that moment to the last day, what becomes of personal identity and accountability? The essence of personality is intelligence. Every intelligent being is a person, and every person an intelligent being.[2] Therefore the uninterrupted continuation of any particular intelligence, necessarily implies his personal identity; whatever body, or whatever garment he may, or may not, happen to wear. Therefore, premising deference, personal identity does not necessarily comprise the whole man, soul and body, as Dr. Watts supposes, nor is it the mere consciousness of my past and present experience compared, as Mr. Locke supposes; for this my very consciousness presupposes that existence of which I am conscious. I may have committed faults and performed virtuous actions in time past, which now I do not remember, and therefore not conscious of them; still those actions were mine, whether I am conscious of them or not, and so far as any one can prove them to be mine, so far he can prove me to be the same person that I was in the time when those actions were performed. For more instruction, the reader may consult that excellent dissertation of Bishop Butler, on this topic; from which I extract a few lines: “As upon two triangles being compared or viewed together, there arises to the mind the idea of similitude; or upon twice two and four, the idea of equality--so likewise upon comparing the consciousness of one’s self in any two moments, there immediately arises to the mind the idea of personal identity. And as the two former comparisons not only give us the ideas of similitude and equality, but also shew us that two triangles are