S THE PROOF OF A SEPARATE STATE. or consciousness, yet, when bis body is raised from the graves they suppose this principle of consciousness is renewed again, and intellectual life'is given him at the resurrection, as well as a new corporeal life. But it should be considered, that this conscious or thinking principle having lost its existence for a season, it will be quite a new thing, or another creature at the resurrection ; and the man will be properly another person, another " self," another I or " he ;" And such a new conscious principle, or person, cannot properly be rewarded, or punished, for personal virtues or vices, of which itself cannot he conscious by any power of memory or reflection, and which were transacted in this mortal state by ano- ther distinct principle of consciousness. For if the conscious principle itself, or the thinking being, has ceased to exist, it is impossible that it should retain any memory of former ac- tions, since itself began to be but in the moment of the resur- rection. The doctrine of rewarding or punishing the same soul or intelligent nature, which did good or evil in this life, necessarily requires that the same soul, or intelligent nature, should have a continued and uninterrupted existence, that so the same conscious being, which did good or evil, may be rewarded or punished. II. Those who suppose the soul of man to have a real dis- tinct existence when the body dies, but only to fall into a state of slumber, without consciousness or activity, must, I think, suppose this soul to be material; that is, an extended and solid substance. If they suppose it to be inextenìded, or to have no parts or quantity, I confess I have no manner of idea of the existence, or possibility of such an inextended being, without consciousness or active power, nor do they pretend to have any such idea, as I ever heard, and therefore they generally grant it to be extended. But if they imagine the soul to be extended, it must either have something more of solidity or density than mere empty space, or it must be quite as unsolid and thin as space itself : Let us con- sider both these. If it be as thin and subtle as mere empty space, yet while it is active and conscious, I own it must have a proper existence; but if it once begin to sleep, and drop all conscious- ness and activity, I have no other idea of it, but the same which I have of empty space ; and that I conceive to be mere nothing, though it impose upon us with the appearance of some sort of properties. If they allowthe soul to have any, the least, degree of den- sity above what belongs to empty space, this is solidity in the philosophic sense of the word, and then it is solid extension, which I call 'matter; and a material being may indeed be laid asleep ; that is, 'it may cease to have any motion in its parts ; but
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