have varied, have been newly felt, and have died out in different periods and conditions of our lives, and the presumption is against the complete endurance of all these “capacities for action,” etc., even during the whole life, and much more strongly, therefore, against their endurance after death. Besides which—continuing the argument from analogy—my “capacities” having only been manifested since my body has existed, and in proportion to my physical ability, the presumption is rather that the manifestation which commenced with the body will finish as the body finishes. Further, it is fair to presume that “death is the destruction of those living powers,” for death is the cessation of organic functional activity; a cessation consequent on some change or destruction of organisation. Of course, the word “destruction” is not here used in any sense of annihilation of substance, but as meaning such a change of condition that vital phenomena are no longer manifested. But, says Butler, “we know not at all what death is in itself, but only some of its effects, such as the dissolution of flesh, skin, and bones, and these effects do in nowise appear to imply the destruction of a living agent.” Here, perhaps, there is an unjustifiable assumption in the words “living agent,” for if by living agent is only meant the animal which dies, then the destruction of flesh, skin, and bones does fairly imply the destruction of the living agent, but if by living agent is intended more than this, then the argument is speciously and unfairly worded. But beyond this, if Bishop Butler’s argument has any value, it proves too much. He says: “Nor can we find anything throughout the whole analogy of nature, to afford us even the slightest presumption that animals ever lose their living powers... by death.” That is, Bishop Butler, applies his argument for a future state of existence, not only to man, but to the whole animal kingdom; and it may be fairly conceded that there is as much ground to presume that man will live again, as there is that the worm will live again, which, being impaled upon a hook, is eaten by the gudgeon, or that the gudgeon will live again which, threadled as a bait, is torn and mangled to death by a ravenous pike, or that the pike will live again after it has been kept out of water till rigid, then gutted, scaled, stuffed with savory condiments, broiled, and ultimately eaten by Piscator and his family. Bishop Butler’s argument that because pleasure or pain is uniformly found to follow the acting or not acting in some particular manner, there is presumptive analogy in favor of future rewards and punishments by Deity, appears weak in the extreme. According to Butler, God is the author of nature. Nature’s laws are such, that punishment, immediate or remote, follows nonobservance, and reward, more or less immediate, is the result of observance; and because God is, by Butler’s argument, assumed as the