"Of the immortality of the soul it appears to me that there can be little doubt, if we attend for a moment to the action of mind: it is in perpetual activity. I used to doubt of it, but reflection has taught me better. It acts also so very independent of body--in dreams, for instance;--incoherently and _madly_, I grant you, but still it is mind, and much more mind than when we are awake. Now that this should not act _separately_, as well as jointly, who can pronounce? The stoics, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, call the present state 'a soul which drags a carcass,'--a heavy chain, to be sure, but all chains being material may be shaken off. How far our future life will be _individual_, or, rather, how far it will at all resemble _our present_ existence, is another question; but that the mind is eternal seems as probable as that the body is not so. Of course I here venture upon the question without recurring to revelation, which, however, is at least as rational a solution of it as any other. A _material_ resurrection seems strange and even absurd, except for purposes of punishment; and all punishment which is to _revenge_ rather than _correct_ must be _morally wrong_; and _when the world is at an end_, what moral or warning purpose _can_ eternal tortures answer? Human passions have probably disfigured the divine doctrines here;--but the whole thing is inscrutable. * * * * * "It is useless to tell me _not_ to _reason_, but to _believe._ You might as well tell a man not to wake, but _sleep._ And then to _bully_ with torments, and all that! I cannot help thinking that the _menace_ of hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains. * * * * * "Man is born _passionate_ of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of good in his main-spring of mind. But, God help us all! it is at present a sad jar of atoms. * * * * * "Matter is eternal, always changing, but reproduced, and, as far as we can comprehend eternity, eternal; and why not _mind_? Why should not the mind act with and upon the universe, as portions of it act upon, and with, the congregated dust called mankind? See how one man acts upon himself and others, or upon multitudes! The same agency, in a higher and purer degree, may act upon the stars, &c. ad infinitum. * * * * *