But that it survives that
period, beyond which we have no experience of its existence, such
distinction and dissimilarity affords no shadow of proof, and nothing
but our own desires could have led us to conjecture or imagine.
Have we existed before birth? It is difficult to conceive the
possibility of this. There is, in the generative principle of each
animal and plant, a power which converts the substances by which
it is surrounded into a substance homogeneous with itself. That
is, the relations between certain elementary particles of matter
undergo a change, and submit to new combinations. For when we use
the words PRINCIPLE, POWER, CAUSE, we mean to express no real being,
but only to class under those terms a certain series of co-existing
phenomena; but let it be supposed that this principle is a certain
substance which escapes the observation of the chemist and anatomist.
It certainly MAY BE; though it is sufficiently unphilosophical
to allege the possibility of an opinion as a proof of its truth.
Does it see, hear, feel, before its combination with those organs
on which sensation depends? Does it reason, imagine, apprehend,
without those ideas which sensation alone can communicate? If we
have not existed before birth; if, at the period when the parts
of our nature on which thought and life depend, seem to be woven
together; if there are no reasons to suppose that we have existed
before that period at which our existence apparently commences,
then there are no grounds for supposition that we shall continue
to exist after our existence has apparently ceased.
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