has nothing at all to do with the subject, when the question of the truth of revelation, and of a state of existence after death, is proposed to our consideration. The certainty of a future state depends on the verity of the Christian revelation; and with this verity the theories and visions of anatomists are wholly unconnected. Revelation stands or falls by the force or the imbecility of the evidence which effected its establishment, and which has remained open to examination for nearly eighteen centuries. How can any reasonable man imagine, that the notions, resulting from the dissection of a brain; that a peep into a human skull, can possibly supply a single argument to weaken this evidence? To what it really amounts can no where be more effectually seen and contemplated, than in the admirable work of Dr. Paley on this momentous subject. I conceive that whoever is familiar with this concentrate, though complete exhibition of the evidences of Christianity, will feel little indeed to surprise and to distress him in the wisdom. or the trifling of chirurgical or medical conjecture, as applied to the question whether matter can think. But, above all, let it be carefully kept m view, that to whatever imagination physiology shall lead-for, it never can advance beyond imagination-or, what is no more, theoretical deduction--the result holds no affinity with the consideration and doctrine of reproduced and continued existence after the collapse of the brain, and the cessation of the heart to beat. A materialist may be a firm believer in Christianity, and in the doctrines of the future state, which that revelation, and which nothing else, has brought to light. For the truth of this assertion eminent examples might be cited. What renders a connection between these creeds impracticable? Suppose it could be proved that a certain organization of matter was capable of producing all the phenomena displayed by the intellectual powers of man, as we mark them operating in his present condition; and suppose him, after death, to be recalled, in the advancement of time, to renovated existence under such corporeal organization, as that which he had formerly inherited; will it be argued that the same organization of matter, by which the power of thinking was formerly generated and supported, will not be qualified to generate and support it again, and that for ever, if it is in the divine purposes to perpetuate his existence? We are here appealing to human reason and conception only: the revealed assurances of a future state, if this were a place for introducing them, would supply an authoritative and quick decision on this important subject. To a Christian, such appeal is unnecessary: to the determined sceptic, such appeal would be vain. I will, however, just suggest to him, and once more to others, very different in amiability of character, that the doctrine of materialism, if well founded and true, could no more invalidate the evidences of Christianity, than it could in any way alter evidence exhibited in a court of law, and act on the minds of a jury who are to find their verdict on said evidence, and on said evidence alone. The effect would be ludicrous, if any professional gentleman should get up and object to evidence, and to the verdict which had been found, because three gentlemen, out of doors, had lately agitated the trite and antiquated question, whether or not the functions of the brain, and the intellectual powers of man, formed synonymous terms: yet, strange as it may seem, this would not be in a single tittle more irrelative, and more absurd, than to imagine the evidences of Christianity in any possible manner affected by a similar objection: for-I claim the privilege of repetition-what connection can in the nature of things, subsist between evidence corroborative of a fact on one subject, and an opinion, which can ad- w mit of no proof, upon another? Yet, such is the case at issue between an infidel materialist, and a believer in the Christian "evelation. |