ces, in the living body, are held in combination by some agency which we call life, and which is continually exerting an antagonistic force against the tendencies to dissolution. The component particles of these substances are undergoing incessant changes under the ceaseless action of that mysterious power which dismisses some and attracts others. This power maintains a perpetual sway, unchanged itself amidst all the changes which it works, until death ensues, when the body becomes a corpse, and the elements fall asunder. The life then retires, and with the life goes forth the intelligence, which conjointly constitute the essence of the man. this surely is not the extinction of his being. Though invisible, he still lives; though no longer physical, he is still psychical; nor can it be shown that the phrase, psychical body, is not a fitting expression for that mode of existence upon which he enters at death.

But

We are well aware that we are here treading upon the outermost limits of our knowledge; but, as the fact is incontestable, that a vital principle, pervading the whole frame, coexists with the intellectual principle in the body, is not the presumption perfectly legitimate that they coexist also out of the body? In other words, that we go into the spiritual world with a psychical body? This, in strictness of speech, is perhaps a more appropriate epithet by which to denominate the body of the resurrection than spiritual, for the reason that it is not entirely clear that this latter term is used in the Scriptures in a metaphysical sense. The original term, πνευματικος, is derived from πνευμα, spirit, and it cannot be doubted that the dominant usage of this word by the sacred writers is not in opposition to material, but to carnal, as when it is said, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Still it is evident that these senses, which we may call the metaphysical and the moral, do border so closely upon, as occasionally to run into, each other; and

bodies, nor, indeed, do we know of any satisfactory explanation of it.”. Magendie's Elements of Human Physiology, p. 26.

where angels and demons are termed nvsvuara, spirits, the ground of the appellation is doubtless the immaterial nature which they possess. For this reason we have frequently employed the phrase "spiritual body" in these pages in the metaphysical sense-a sense in which it would apply to the future bodies of the wicked, as well as of the righteous. At the same time we cannot but deem the term psychical, derived from yuxn, soul, life, the seat of sensation, as conveying a more strictly accurate idea in this connexion than the other, although aware that this also is occasionally used in a moral sense. * We here repeat the remark which we have substantially made before, that we cannot admit that our inability to define with scientific exactness the intrinsic nature of the substance which, on the authority of Scripture, we denominate spiritual, vacates the general force of our reasonings on the subject. If our conclusions are denied on this score, what are those which are affirmed?

CHAPTER III.

The True Body of the Resurrection, as inferred by Reason.

We trust it may not be forgotten that we are prosecuting exclusively the rational argument in respect to the resurrection. The conclusions derived from the Scriptural view of the subject will be matter of subsequent consideration. At present we take philosophy for our guide, just as the geol

* Some writers have adopted, by way of distinction, on this subject, the terms sarkosomatous and pneumasomatous, which will at once disclose their meaning to scholars as implying the flesh-body and the spiritbody, and to which there is no objection but their strangeness to English

ears.

ogist takes the earth for his theme, and from its own phenomena endeavors to ascertain its past and future history. There is doubtless a science pertaining to each- —a science yielding truths in which the reason, by the very laws of its actings, must rest with absolute assurance. These results of the reason, when rightly established, must agree with the sense of revelation, when rightly understood. As both reason and revelation acknowledge the same Divine Author, it is impossible that there should be any conflict in their genuine teachings. In regard to the point in question, we have shown, if we mistake not, that a sound and strict philosophy does encounter difficulties in the resurrection of the same body which may be pronounced insuperable, while it perceives none in the resurrection of the same person. The nature of these difficulties we may develope a little more at length, and under somewhat of a new aspect, with a view to come somewhat nearer to a conception of the true theory of the future life.*

The succession of particles in the human body may be compared to the successive members of a corporate society

*In the mean time I crave leave to ask whether there be any propositions your lordship can be certain of that are not divinely revealed? And here I will presume that your lordship is not so skeptical but that you can allow certainty attainable in many things by your natural faculties. Give me leave, then, to ask your lordship whether, when there be propositions of whose truth you have certain knowledge, you can receive any proposition for divine revelation which contradicts that certainty? If you cannot, as I presume your lordship will say you cannot, I make bold to return your lordship's questions put to me in your own words: 'Let us now suppose that you are to judge of a proposition delivered as a matter of faith, where you have certainty by reason, can you, my lord, assent to this as a matter of faith, when you are already certain of the contrary? How is this possible? Can you believe that to be true which you are certain is not true? How can you believe against certainty ?" Certainty is certainty, and he that is certain is certain, and cannot assent to that as true which he is certain is not true."-Locke's Reply to Bp. of Worcester, p. 217-18.

formed under a charter. Let us take, for example, the English East India Company. Let us suppose that this company, after being in existence for a number of years, should at length, and long before the term of the charter expires, become virtually extinct, by the death of all but one or two of its members, who become remiss in acting any longer in their corporate capacity. We will imagine again that, after the lapse of a considerable interval, it is proposed to resuscitate the company. What are the leading ideas involved in the supposition? Would it be at all inferred that the former members were to be restored to life and organized anew? Does the renovated life of the company imply the reviviscence of the individual members who have previously formed it? The charter, it will be perceived, is the true constituting or uniting principle of the society, and so long as the charter remains unimpaired, with its objects, provisions, and conditions, so long the real essential life of the corporate company remains also unimpaired. The vitality, so to speak, of the society is in the charter, and there its identity is seated. So long as the charter remains the same, the society remains the same, and this sameness is entirely independent of the sameness of the members associated under it. So far then as we can perceive, the revival of the corporate society is not the revival, in any sense, of the original members, but merely the revival of the inherent formative or organific power of the charter. The charter is the living nucleus-the germ-the ground-element-to which the new social fabric owes its existence. This lives unchanged in the midst of all the changes which come over the incorporated members, which "never cease to perish." Now it is obvious, in the application of this to the subject before us, that if we could find in the human being something analogous to the charter in the company-something which continues to live in spite of the constant process of decay and dissolution-something of which we could predicate an immovable identity in the midst of perpetual tran

sition—should we not feel that we had obtained a clew to the true resurrection-body? We might indeed be conscious that it was giving language somewhat more than its usual latitude to apply the term body to this subtle entity, whatever it was, but would it not be that which we should be sure was to be so denominated, if the term were used at all in this connexion? This principle, it is evident, while it constitutes the counterpart to the charter supposed, must be something wholly apart from and independent of the material particles which compose the present fabric of the body-something which has no permanent or necessary relation to that body-something which precludes the idea of the re-collection or re-construction of those dispersed materials of the former corporeity. Such, we cannot help believing, is the true view of the subject. The resurrectionbody is that part of our present being to which the essential life of the man pertains. We may not be able to see it, to handle it, to analyze it, or to describe it. But we know that it exists, because we know that we ourselves exist. It constitutes the inner essential vitality of our present bodies, and it lives again in another state because it never dies. It is immortal in its own nature, and it is called a body—a spiritual body-because the poverty of human language, or perhaps the weakness of the human mind, forbids the adoption of any more fitting term by which to express it. It is, however, a body which has nothing to do with the gross material particles which enter into the composition of our present earthly tenements. Still we re-affirm our former position, that the truth of our conclusion on this head does not depend upon our ability to define the internal nature or constitution of this substratum of our being. We know that it is, whatever be its essence, and we are at liberty to reason to it and from it, as a positive existence, the negation of which would land us in interminable absurdities.

We cannot be unconscious, however, that we must here be prepared to encounter the query, whether, upon the view