Harleigh sighed; but with earnestness continued: 'We conceive the soul to influence, if not to direct our whole construction, yet we have no sensible proof of its being in any part of it: how, then, shall we determine that to be destroyed or departed, which we have never known to be created? never seen to exist? O bow we down! for all is inexplicable! We can but say, the body is obvious in its perfection, and still obvious in its decay; the soul is always unsearchable! were we sure it were only our understanding, we might, perhaps, develop it; or only our feelings, we might catch it; but it is something indefinable, of which the consciousness tells us not the qualities, nor the possession the attributes; and of which the end leaves no trace! We follow it not to its dissolution like the body; which, after what we call death, is still as evident, as when our conception of what is soul were yet lent to it: if the soul, then, be equally material, say, is it still there also? though as unseen and hidden as when breath and motion were yet perceptible?' 'Body and soul, Albert, come together with existence, and together are nullified by death.' 'And are you, Elinor, aware whither such reasoning may lead? If the body instead of being the tenement of the soul, is but one and the same with it;--how are you certain, if they are not sundered by death, that they do not in death, though by means, and with effects to us unknown, still exist together? That with the body, whether animated or inert, the soul may not always be adherent? who shall assure you, who, at least, shall demonstrate, that if the soul be but a part of the body, it may not think, though no utterance can be given to its thoughts; and may not feel, though all expression is at an end, and motion is no more? Whither may such reasoning lead? to what strange suggestions may it not conduct us? to what vain fantasies, what useless horrours? May we not apprehend that the insects, the worms which are formed from the human frame, may partake of and retain human consciousness? May we not imagine those wretched reptiles, which creep from our remains, to be sensible of their fallen state, and tortured by their degradation? to resent, as well as seek to elude the ill usage, the blows, the oppressions to which they are exposed?--' 'Fie! Albert, fie!' 'Nay, what proof, if for proof you wait, have you to the contrary? Is it their writhing? their sensitive shrink from your touch? their agonizing efforts to save their miserable existence from your gripe?' 'Harleigh! Harleigh!'