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ing. And this idea or conviction of personal existence, which arises at this very early period, is continually suggested and confirmed in the course of the successive duties, and enjoyments, and sufferings of life. This is a result, which is necessarily involved in our mental constitution, and which, as it has such an origin, neither fears any refutation, nor requires any argument in its support.

Malebranche in his Search after Truth speaks much in commendation of what he has termed the spirit of doubting. But then he bestows this commendation with such limitations as will prevent those evils, which reult from too freely giving up to a sceptical spirit.

"To doubt (says he) with judgment and reason, is not so small a thing as people imagine, for here it may be said, that there's a great difference between doubting and doubting. We doubt through passion and brutality, through blindness and malice, and, lastly, through fancy, and only because we would doubt. But we doubt also with prudence and caution, with wisdom and penetration of mind. Academics and atheists doubt upon the first grounds, true philosophers on the second. The first is a doubt of darkness, which does not conduct us into the light, but always removes us from it." (B. I. ch. 20.)

We may remark in conformity with this distinction of Malebranche, that the doubting of those over-scrupulous inquirers, who demand proof of their own existence, is of that kind, to which he so justly objects. Scepticism on that subject is truly a doubt of darkness, which does not conduct us into the light, but always removes us from it. A third of those preliminary truths or propositions, which we term PRIMARY, is this;

§. 17. The belief and certainty of our personal identity.

It is necessary to make the remark here, that a distinction has very properly been made between personal identity, and mental and bodily identity.By the phrase, mental identity, we express the continuance and oneness of the thinking principle merely; and by bodily identity, we mean the sameness of the bodily shape and

general organization. We cannot attach any other meaning to the latter phrase in consequence of the constant changes in the material particles, which compose our bodily systems. In those more general apprehensions, however, which we attach to the phrase, personal identity, we have reference both to the one and the other, the mind and the body, and combine together the two ideas, which are conveyed in the two phrases before mentioned, viz., mental identity and bodily identity. In other words, when it is said, that any one is conscious of, knows, or has a certainty of his personal identity, it is meant to be asserted, that he is conscious of having formerly possessed the powers of an organized, animated, and rational being, and that he still possesses those powers. There is no mystery in this; it is plain and easily understood; and we are led, therefore, to assert, that a belief in personal identity or a conviction and knowledge, that there has been such a continuance of our being, is to be regarded, and with abundant reason, as a primary truth.

In the FIRST place, the mere fact, that it is constantly implied in those conclusions, which we form in respect to the future from the past, and universally in our daily actions, is of itself a sufficient ground for reckoning it among the original and essential intimations of the human intellect. On any other hypothesis we are quite unable to account for that practical recognition of it in the pursuits of men, which is at once so evident and so universal.—The farmer, for instance, who looks abroad on his cultivated fields, knows, that he is identically the same person, who, twenty years before, entered the forest with an axe on his shoulder, and felled the first tree. The aged soldier, who recounts at his fireside the battles of his youth, never once doubts that he was himself the witness of those sanguinary scenes, which he delights to relate. It is alike useless to attempt to deny or to prove to them a proposition, which they believe and know, not from reasoning but from their very nature; and which, it is sufficiently evident, can never be eradicated from their belief and knowledge, until that nature is changed.

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A SECOND circumstance in favour of regarding the notion of personal identity, as an admitted or primary truth, is, that from the nature of the case no train of reasoning, (what may be termed an argument,) can be employed in reference to it, either for or against. The truth of this remark will appear on examination. There evidently can be no argument, properly so called, unless there be a succession of distinct propositions. From such a succession of propositions, no conclusion can be drawn by any one, unless he be willing to trust to the evidence of memory. But memory involves a notion of the time past, and whoever admits, that he has the power of memory, in however small a degree, virtually admits, that he has existed identically the same at some former period, as at present.

The considerations, which we have now particularly in view and which are greatly worthy of attention in connection with the principle under examination, may with a little variation of terms be stated thus.

Remembrance, without the admission of our personal identity, is clearly an impossibility. But there can be no process of reasoning without memory. This is evident, because arguments are made up of propositions, which are successive to each other, not only in order, but in point of time. It follows, then, that there can be no argument whatever, or on any subject, without the admission of our identity, as a point, from which to start. What then will

it avail to attempt to reason either for or against the views, which are here maintained, since in every argument which is employed, there is necessarily an admission of the very thing, which is the subject of inquiry.

A fourth of those TRUTHS or fundamental propositions, which we term primary, may thus be stated;

§. 18. The external, material world has an existence.

The Pyrrhonic sect, so named from Pyrrho, its founder, a native of Elea, who flourished in the fourth century before Christ, called in question the truth of every system of opinions, adopted by other sects. Hence they have been also called Sceptics and the Sceptical sect; names, which,

in consequence of holding every thing to be uncertain,

They denied among oth-
Their reasonings in res-

they seem to have well merited. er things the existence of matter. pect to the material world were such as the following. FIRST; The organs of perception, said they, are different in different animals, and it is probable, that the same objects present different images or appearances to them. But one person evidently can have no reason for saying, that his perceptions are more agreeable to the real nature of things than those of another person or of other animals.

SECONDLY; Objects present a different aspect according to their position, their nearness, or distance, or the mode in which they are exhibited to the senses; and no good reason can be given, why one of these aspects should agree with the real object any better than the rest of them.

For instance, the sun, when seen by the naked eye, appears to be a small body about a foot in diameter, and it is the same with the moon; but we receive a very different account of the dimensions of these luminaries, when they are seen through a telescope.-Again, when we are so situated behind a high wall or hill as to see a distant church steeple, it often appears nearer than it actually is, because we are unable to discern the houses and other objects, intervening between the steeple, and the hill or wall, over which we behold it, and which would help us to measure the true distance. In consequence of supposing it to be nearer than it is in fact, we are led to regard it as of diminished size; that is, it has the appearance of being smaller than a steeple equally distant seen under other circumstances. But when we find our senses conveying to us such different representations of the same object, who is to determine which is the true and correct one?The truth is, say those, who profess to be genuine sceptics, there is no end to the impositions, which our senses practise upon us; they are continually giving us erroneous intimations; consequently we are not at liberty to depend upon them; and it is, therefore, an useless undertaking to attempt to prove the existence of any external, material substances.

It was said of Pyrrho, that he carried his principles so far as to be in danger of being run over by carriages or of tumbling from precipices. But as his doctrine always found enough disposed to ridicule it, these statements were probably the fabrications of his enemies.

In replying to these views of the Pyrrhonic or Sceptical philosophy, we may here remark, that we do not attempt to explain what the real nature or essence of matter is, but merely assert, that it exists. And in taking this ground, we do no otherwise, than when we assert and maintain the existence of the Supreme Being, while we all acknowledge our ignorance of the nature or essence of that existence. And having made this suggestion, it may briefly be remarked,

FIRST; In forming a judgment of external things, the senses are not to be separated from each other, nor the intellectual powers from the senses.- -If, therefore, the advocates of the doubting philosophy are unable by the sense of sight to judge correctly of the size of a steeple, or of other distant objects, has not the Almighty furnished them with another sense, that of the touch, by which they can form a more correct estimation?- -If the eye of the body by itself alone be unable to give us a correet idea of the sun and moon, cannot the eye of the mind come in to its assistance? Can it not tell us not only the size of those bodies, but mark out the path of their motion; and thus, not only seeing those things, which actually exist but those, which are to be hereafter, predict their position and appearance before that position and those appearances happen?

SECONDLY; this circumstance also to be considered. Those who deny the existence of a material world, either deny or admit their own existence. If they deny it, then truly we have none to contend with. If they admit it, they must either claim to be pure and unearthly intellect, or grant, that they are made up in part of matter. In the latter case, it seems to fall upon them to show, why we may more easily believe in the existence of that portion

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