Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 407, September, 1849

NORTH

It was not only a proper question, but a necessary one. Butler wisely says – "This is that kind of Presumption or Probability from Analogy, expressed in the very word Continuance, which seems our only natural reason for believing the course of the world will continue to-morrow, as it has done so far as our experience or knowledge of history can carry us back." I give you, here, the Bishop's very words – and I believe that in them is affirmed a truth that no scepticism can shake.

TALBOYS

If I mistake not, sir, the Bishop here frankly admits, that were we not fortified against a natural impression, with some better instruction than unreflecting Nature's, the spontaneous disposition of our Mind would undoubtedly be to an expectation that in this great catastrophe of our mortal estate, We Ourselves must perish; but he contends – does he not, sir? – that it would be a blind fear, and without rational ground.

NORTH

Yes – that it is an impression of the illusory faculty, Imagination, and not an inference of Reason. There would arise, he says, "a general confused suspicion, that in the great shock and alteration which we shall undergo by death, We, i. e. our living Powers, might be wholly destroyed;" – but he adds solemnly, "there is no particular distinct ground or reason for this apprehension, so far as I can find."

TALBOYS

Such "general confused suspicion," then, is not justified?

NORTH

Butler holds that any justifying ground of the apprehension that, in the shock of death, I, the living Being, or, which is the same thing, These my powers of acting, enjoying, and suffering, shall be extinguished and cease, must be found either in "the reason of the Thing" itself, or in "the Analogy of Nature." To say that a legitimate ground of attributing to the sensible mortal change a power of extinguishing the inward life is to be found in the Reason of the Thing, is as much as to say, that when considering the essential nature of this great and tremendous, or at least dreaded change, Death, and upon also considering what these powers of acting, of enjoying, of suffering, truly are, and in what manner, absolutely, they subsist in us – there does appear to lie therein demonstration, or evidence, or likelihood, that the change, Death, will swallow up such living Powers – and that We shall no longer be.

TALBOYS

In short, sir, that from considering what Death is, and upon what these Powers and their exercise depend, there is reason to think, that the Powers or their exercise will or must cease with Death.

NORTH

The very point. And the Bishop's answer is bold, short, and decisive. We cannot from considering what Death is, draw this or any other conclusion, for we do not know what Death is! We know only certain effects of Death – the stopping of certain sensible actions – the dissolution of certain sensible parts. We can draw no conclusion, for we do not possess the premises.

SEWARD

From your Exposition, sir, I feel that the meaning of the First Chapter of the Analogy is dawning into clearer and clearer light.

NORTH

Inconsiderately, my dear sir, we seem indeed to ourselves to know what Death is; but this is from confounding the Thing and its Effects. For we see effects: at first, the stoppage of certain sensible actions – afterwards, the dissolution of certain sensible parts. But what it is that has happened —wherefore the blood no longer flows – the limbs no longer move —that we do not see. We do not see it with our eyes – we do not discern it by any inference of our understanding. It is a fact that seems to lie shrouded for ever from our faculties in awful and impenetrable mystery. That fact – the produce of an instant – which has happened within, and in the dark– that fact come to pass, in an indivisible point of time – that stern fact – ere the happening of which the Man was alive – an inhabitant of this breathing world – united to ourselves – our Father, Brother, Friend – at least our Fellow-Creature – by the happening, he is gone – is for ever irrecoverably sundered from this world, and from us its inhabitants – is Dead – and that which lies outstretched before our saddened eyes is only his mortal remains – a breathless corpse – an inanimate, insensible clod of clay: – Upon that interior sudden fact —sudden, at last, how slowly and gradually soever prepared – since the utmost attenuation of a thread is a thing totally distinct from its ending, from its becoming no thread at all, and since, up to that moment, there was a possibility that some extraordinary, perhaps physical application might for an hour or a few minutes have rallied life, or might have reawakened consciousness, and eye, and voice – upon that elusive Essence and self of Death no curious searching of ours has laid, or, it may be well assumed, will ever lay hold. When the organs of sense no longer minister to Perception, or the organs of motion to any change of posture – when the blood stopped in its flow thickens and grows cold – and the fair and stately form, the glory of the Almighty's Hand, the burning shrine of a Spirit that lately rejoiced in feeling, in thought, and in power, lies like a garment done with and thrown away – "a kneaded clod" – ready to lose feature and substance – and to yield back its atoms to the dominion of the blind elements from which they were gathered and compacted —What is Death? And what grounds have we for inferring that an event manifested to us as a phenomenon of the Body, which alone we touch, and hear, and see, has or has not reached into the Mind, which is for us Now just as it always was, a Thing utterly removed and exempt from the cognisance and apprehension of our bodily senses? The Mind, or Spirit, the unknown Substance, in which Feeling, and Thought, and Will, and the Spring of Life were – was united to this corporeal frame; and, being united to it, animated it, poured through it sensibility and motion, glowing and creative life – crimsoned the lips and cheeks – flashed in the eye – and murmured music from the tongue; —now, the two – Body and Soul – are disunited– and we behold one-half the consequence – the Thing of dust relapses to the dust; – we dare to divine the other half of the consequence – the quickening Spark, the sentient Intelligence, the Being gifted with Life, the Image of the Maker, in Man, has, reascended, has returned thither whence it came, into the Hand of God.

SEWARD

If, sir, we were without light from the revealed Word of God, if we were left, by the help of reason, standing upon the brink of Time, dimly guessing, and inquiringly exploring, to find for ourselves the grounds of Hope and Fear, would your description, my dear Master, of that which has happened, seem to our Natural Faculties impossible? Surely not.

NORTH

My dear Seward, we have the means of rendering some answer to that question. The nations of the world have been, more or less, in the condition, supposed. Self-left, they have borne the burden of the dread secret, which for them only the grave could resolve; but they never were able to sit at rest in the darkness. Importunate and insuppressible desire, in their bosoms, knocked at the gate of the invisible world, and seemed to hear an answer from beyond. The belief in a long life of ages to follow this fleet dream – imaginary revelations of regions bright or dark – the mansions of bliss or of sorrow – an existence to come, and often of retribution to come – has been the religion of Mankind – here in the rudest elementary shape – here in elaborated systems.

SEWARD

Ay, sir; methinks the Hell of Virgil – and his Elysian Fields are examples of a high, solemn, and beautiful Poetry. But they have a much deeper interest for a man studious, in earnest, of his fellow-men. Since they really express the notions under which men have with serious belief shadowed out for themselves the worlds to which the grave is a portal. The true moral spirit that breathes in his enumeration of the Crimes that are punished, of the Virtues that have earned and found their reward, and some scattered awful warnings – are impressive even to us Christians.

NORTH

Yes, Seward, they are. Hearken to the attestation of the civilised and the barbarous. Universally there is a cry from the human heart, beseeching, as it were, of the Unknown Power which reigns in the Order and in the Mutations of Things, the prolongation of this vanishing breath – the renovation, in undiscovered spheres, of this too brief existence – an appeal from the tyranny of the tomb – a prayer against annihilation. Only at the top of Civilisation, sometimes a cold and barren philosophy, degenerate from nature, and bastard to reason, has limited its sullen view to the horizon of this Earth – has shut out and refused all ulterior, happy, or dreary anticipation.

SEWARD

You may now, assured of our profound attention – return to Butler – if indeed you have left him —

NORTH

I have, and I have not. A few minutes ago I was expounding – in my own words – and for the reason assigned, will continue to do so – his argument. If, not knowing what death is, we are not entitled to argue, from the nature of death, that this change must put an end to Ourselves, and those essential powers in our mind which we are conscious of exerting – just as little can we argue from the nature of these powers, and from their manner of subsisting in us, that they are liable to be affected and impaired, or destroyed by death. For what do we know of these powers, and of the conditions on which we hold them, and of the mind in which they dwell? Just as much as we do of the great change, Death itself – that is to say – Nothing.

TALBOYS

We know the powers of our mind solely by their manifestations.

NORTH

But people in general do not think so – and many metaphysicians have written as if they had forgot that it is only from the manifestation that we give name to the Power. We know the fact of Seeing, Hearing, Remembering, Reasoning – the feeling of Beauty – the actual pleasure of Moral Approbation, the pain of Moral Disapprobation – the state – pleasure or pain of loving – the state – pleasure or pain of hating – the fire of anger – the frost of fear – the curiosity to know – the thirst for distinction – the exultation of conscious Power – all these, and a thousand more, we know abundantly: our conscious Life is nothing else but such knowledge endlessly diversified. But the Powers themselves, which are thus exerted – what they are —how they subsist in us ready for exertion – of this we know – Nothing.

TALBOYS

We know something of the Conditions upon which the exercise of these Powers depends – or by which it is influenced. Thus we know, that for seeing, we must possess that wondrous piece of living mechanism, the eye, in its healthy condition. We know further, that a delicate and complicated system of nerves, which convey the visual impressions from the eye itself to the seeing power, must be healthy and unobstructed. We know that a sound and healthy state of the brain is necessary to these manifestations – that accidents befalling the Brain totally disorder the manifestations of these powers – turning the clear self-possessed mind into a wild anarchy – a Chaos – that other accidents befalling the same organ suspend all manifestations. We know that sleep stops the use of many powers – and that deep sleep – at least as far as any intimations that reach our waking state go – stops them all. We know that a nerve tied or cut stops the sensation – stops the motory volition which usually travels along it. We know how bodily lassitude – how abstinence – how excess – affects the ability of the mind to exert its powers. In short, the most untutored experience of every one amongst us all shows bodily conditions, upon which the activity of the faculties which are seated in the mind, depends. And within the mind itself we know how one manifestation aids or counteracts another – how Hope invigorates – how Fear disables – how Intrepidity keeps the understanding clear —

NORTH

You are well illustrating Butler, Talboys. Then, again, we know that for Seeing, we must have that wonderful piece of living mechanism perfectly constructed, and in good order – that a certain delicate and complicated system of nerves extending from the eye inwards, is appointed to transmit the immediate impressions of light from this exterior organ of sight to the percipient Mind – that these nerves allotted to the function of seeing, must be free from any accidental pressure; knowledge admirable, curious, useful; but when all is done, all investigated, that our eyes, and fingers, and instruments, and thoughts, can reach —What, beyond all this marvellous Apparatus of seeing, is That which sees– what the percipient Mind is – that is a mystery into which no created Being ever had a glimpse. Or what is that immediate connexion between the Mind itself, and those delicate corporeal adjustments – whereby certain tremblings, or other momentary changes of state in a set of nerves, upon the sudden, turn into Colours – into Sight – into the Vision of a Universe.

SEWARD

Does Butler say all that, sir?

NORTH

In his own dry way perhaps he may. These, my friends, are Wonders into which Reason looks, astonished; or, more properly speaking, into which she looks not, nor, self-knowing, attempts to look. But, reverent and afraid, she repeats that attitude which the Great Poet has ascribed to "brightest cherubim" before the footstool of the Omnipotent Throne, who

"Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes."

TALBOYS

For indeed at the next step beyond lies only the mystery of Omnipotence – that mystery which connects the world, open and known to us, to the world withheld and unknown.

NORTH

The same with regard to Pleasure and Pain. What enjoys Pleasure or suffers Pain? – all that is, to our clearest, sharpest-sighted science, nothing else but darkness – but black unfathomable night. Therefore, since we know not what Death itself is – and since we know not what this Living Mind is, nor what any of its powers and capacities are – what conclusion, taken in the nature of these unknown subjects, can we possibly be warranted in drawing as to the influence which this unknown change, Death, will exert upon this unknown Being – Mind – and upon its unknown faculties and sensibilities? – None.

SEWARD

Shall unknown Death destroy this unknown Mind and its unknown capacities? It is just as likely, for anything that Reason can see, that it will set them free to a larger and more powerful existence. And if we have any reason upon other grounds to expect this – then by so much the more likely.

NORTH