one. The greater probability undoubtedly is, that all was a blank from the moment of ceasing to breathe to the moment of breathing again. But the supposition that this unconsciousness remains till a far distant period, when all who have lived will be reanimated at once, is attended with insuperable difficulties, and with no substantial evidence whatever.

Who that looks round him or calculates for a moment can suppose that human bodies can be raised entire? We all speculate somewhat in Hamlet's mode when we watch the revolutions of churchyards. We see how the earthy barriers between the graves are broken through, how dust is mingled with dust till all becomes an indistinguishable mass; how, in course of time, the foundations of dwellings for the living are laid among the ruined abodes of the dead; how, when these dwellings have also crumbled away, the plough turns up the clods, and food is raised from the elements of a former organization to nourish frames which must afford the same service in their turn. Other changes succeed. When generations have reaped their living harvests from the harvest-field of death, green pastures are spread, or still waters expand, or the sea comes sweeping over all, and a new species of vegetation begins in the hollows, and a new influx of life pervades the scene of so many vicissitudes. Thus is it in every region. The caravan of the desert leaves no trace of its perished thousands when the moist wind and the dry, the jackal and the carrion bird, have done their work. The sunken vessel, with all that it contained of human or inanimate, is dissolved into its elements before the neighbouring coral reef has been built up to the surface. And what is to be said of cannibalism, where one human frame is immediately incorporated with another? The resurrection of each entire human body is manifestly impossible.

But, it is maintained, though the body may not be raised entire, some portion of it may be indestructible: some indistinguishable atom may be preserved in a state of organization from which life may be at length evolved, and in which a consciousness of identity may be renewed.

On the fate of indistinguishable atoms we certainly cannot speak positively; but it is reasonable to require some evidence of the existence of the kind supposed. We know of no such evidence, and perceive no need of such a supposition. The Mahometans and Jews held the same doctrine; but as their notions were grosser than ours, their choice of the indestructible part was more open to refutation. They each fixed on a certain bone which was to be incapable of decay, and prepared to sprout up into a complete human form in the fulness of time. These bones, however, were found to crumble into dust like other bones, and the conjecture was overthrown, as would probably be that of these other speculators, if their "atoms" were not "indistinguishable" and therefore beyond the reach of argument and testimony.

Thus much, however, may be said, that if only a particle remains to be revived, its renewal of life, or development, or whatever else it may be called, is something wholly different from that resurrection of the body which is contended for on Scripture grounds. It cannot be supposed to be the doctrine which Paul had in mind when he wrote on the subject to the Corinthians and the Thessalonians; it removes to the furthest limit the analogy between the resurrections of the gospel history and our own. It is not only a mere hypothesis, but it is as much discountenanced by Scripture as the doctrine of a separate soul.

There is yet a third supposition, which, though not free from difficulties, avoids the most perplexing which beset the other two, and as it was prima

rily suggested by Scripture, is by far the most easily reconcileable with the most important class of facts to which we can appeal. On this supposition, man is and ever shall be material, his frame being made susceptible of change according to his change of state: as expressed by Paul," there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body:" or as we may explain it, there is a gross body, and there is an etherealized body. The unconsciousness of death may thus last only while the ethereal body is evolved from the gross inanimate one, and we have at once an explanation of most of the Scripture expressions which have been given over as inexplicable by one or other party or both, and thus the facts also of Scripture present comparatively little difficulty.

A while ago, this doctrine would have been objected to on the ground of physical impossibility; but the extraordinary advancement of chemical science within a short period has made men cautious of pronouncing on physical impossibilities. The evolutions which have been detected of invisible substances from bodies which thenceforth tend to dissolution, the transmutations of various substances into one another and into others wholly different, the apparent transformations when known elements are combined in new modes, present results which would formerly have been far less credible to the ignorant, than the doctrine in question need be to us who are confessedly as much in the dark about some elements of the human frame as the peasantry of a century ago respecting various subtile substances with which science has rendered us familiar. By the doctrine in question, the phenomena of disease and death are made easy of explanation on the grounds which the materialist has ever firmly occupied, while the objections to the state ensuing, on which the immaterialist has seldom been satisfactorily answered, do not apply. The body is, as he supposes, destined to decay without any design of revival; it need not, as he says, perplex us to see it pass through a succession of forms, the same particles, perhaps, constituting in turn the limbs, the heart, the brain, of many living creatures; it need not, prospectively, give us concern to imagine that what was once Alexander may bung a beer barrel, or that "Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away." It remains to compare the supposition with Scripture facts, and afterwards with Scripture reasonings.

There is evidently nothing to contradict it in the cases of the daughter of Jairus and of the young man of Nain, and of those who were raised by the apostles from death which had just taken place: and though it may appear vain to speak of what seems most natural in miraculous cases, it will be acknowledged to be more easily conceivable that the process of bodily change should be delayed or reversed in such instances, than that the spirit should be recalled from a new state of which it retained not the slightest impression. We are not destitute of something like evidence that this change does not begin at once, or is at first slow, or easily reversible. Persons apparently drowned have been revived when every indication of life had some time ceased; and inferior animals, if not men, have been restored by galvanism when they had been confidently pronounced dead; in the case of small animals, we know, to the astonishment if not the horror of the operator. It will be said they were not dead. Certainly, according to our common notion of death, because they lived again without miraculous intervention. But what is it then to be dead? Where can the line be drawn short of the obvious commencement of decay? Would these bodies, if not acted upon, have given any further sign of change previous to decay? Was any token of death absent, any intimation of lingering life discernible?

Surely not. The restoration of the youth and maiden of the gospel history was effected by a word spoken, and was therefore unquestionably miraculous; all that we mean to intimate is, that the internal change was probably less than in the other cases to which we are about to turn; probably only such as we might understand if our knowledge of chemical processes were what it promises to become. The case of Lazarus is a more difficult one. Whether there was obvious decay, as his sister apprehended; whether in so peculiar a case the process of change was retarded; or whether the time required for this process varies with the varieties of bodily constitution, we know not. Any of these suppositions are probable. The first two are perfectly consistent with the miraculous character of the entire event, and the last has in its favour very strong presumption from analogy. Any one is more probable than that the separate soul of Lazarus was taken from among the blessed, steeped in some nameless Lethe, and restored to its prison "newly swept and garnished" for its reception.

As the time required for obvious change in the dead body varies extensively with the circumstances of natural constitution, climate, the nature of the mortal disease or accident, &c., it seems very probable that the change of death is in proportion rapid or slow in its completion. In Jesus, it appears to have been completed in forty hours; in Lazarus, to have been unfinished in four days, if he was indeed unconscious during the whole time that he was in the sepulchre, which, as we have before said, we do not doubt. This difference between the two cases makes no difficulty as long as other obvious differences in the state of the inanimate body exist likewise. A more important part of the inquiry is as to their comparative state when they came forth from their dark and cold abodes. Lazarus was as before, a mortal. He lived, as formerly, among mortals, destined to die like them; and he died, as tradition relates, thirty years after his first restoration. With Jesus, all was different. He came and went, he appeared and withdrew, but dwelt no more in the abodes of men, and was manifestly no longer subject, though he benevolently condescended, to the conditions of mortality. In order to prove to doubters and to those who were to testify of his resurrection that it was indeed himself in bodily presence, he allowed his followers to convince themselves by tangible evidence, and he ate before them; but it does not follow that his frame was unchanged. The manner in which the story is related of his appearance after the doors were closed, seems to intimate that his approach was not in the usual manner; and the same may be said of his mode of quitting the disciples at Emmaus, when he had broken bread with them. The accounts of his various appearances, added to that of his ascension, suggest the belief that he rose from the short sleep of death invested with a " spiritual body," perceived by his followers to be more pure and glorious than that which sustained this change, and known to be immortal.

Thus far the case of all who die is probably the same as his. What there was peculiar in the case of Jesus was in consequence of the peculiarity of his office. It was the necessary conclusion of his mission that he should prove the resurrection by submitting himself to the gross senses of his followers; and therefore no mortal remains, as in other cases, were left behind, but he underwent that change of the gross into the etherealized body which Paul anticipated for those who, as he believed, would remain alive at the coming of Christ. It seems that this peculiarity was shared by Elijah, and perhaps by Moses; and it presents no difficulty whatever in the way of our determination how far the analogy holds between the mode of Christ's resurrection

and that of other men. The analogy holds as far as their circumstances are alike and no further. We are mortal, and designed for immortality; therefore we shall die and rise like him. Our mortal frame is of the same general structure as his; therefore it will undergo the same general process. We are not appointed to prove any ulterior fact through the proof of our identity after death, and therefore our gross remains will be left to decay, and we shall not come to survivors in a visible and tangible form.

We must resist our inclination to go into the consideration of the many Scripture facts related to those we have mentioned, and of the speculations on a local heaven, &c., &c., and pass on to the reasonings of the New Testament respecting the doctrine of a resurrection and future life, adverting to them only for the sake of illustrating the supposition now before us. The two principal parts are 1 Thess. iv. 13, to the end, v. 1-12, and 1 Cor. xv. In considering these passages, it is clear, first, that Paul expected an event which did not come to pass; viz. that before his generation passed away, the end of the mortal state of humanity should arrive; that the departed should come with Christ, that his living disciples should be taken, without dying, into a state of incorruptibility, and that the whole race should then have entered upon the future life promised by Christ. It is easy to account for this erroneous expectation of the Apostle by reviewing the prophecies of Christ respecting his kingdom and its close on the overthrow of the Jewish statethe end of the age, as it was emphatically called-and by remembering how different a thing it is to interpret a prophecy, however distinct, before its accomplishment, and to recognize its fulfilment after the event. Nothing is easier than to separate what relates to this false expectation from the philosophical reasonings on death and resurrection, which are in no way invalidated by it. It is clear, in the second place, that the whole chain of reasoning is worthless and unintelligible on the hypothesis of a separate soul, and that it gives no intimation whatever, as a whole, or in any separate part, of a simultaneous resurrection of mankind; while it is perfectly consistent with the last of our three suppositions.

Nothing is more natural than that Paul should describe the dead as those who sleep, because there is certainly no stronger analogy to the apprehensions of the living than that between death and sleep; an analogy which remains apparent to the survivors long after it has, according to our doctrine, ceased to the departed. It should be remembered how perpetually Paul at the same time represents the state of the departed as a state of consciousness, of activity, and enjoyment. It is, indeed, possible to interpret these representations as having a prospective meaning; but while such an interpretation is unnecessary, and while it destroys in a great measure the analogy between the case of Christ and that of men in general, we shall scarcely be inclined to adopt it. As for the rest, it can be necessary for our readers only to institute a comparison between our doctrine and the reasoning of Paul on death and revival, to admit their perfect consistency. We were about to go over the several points of his argument, the question whether Christ arose, the application of his case to all others, the contrast of the states under Adam and Christ, the reply to objectors on physical grounds, the triumphant anticipation of the final issue to humanity-but this our readers can do for themselves, almost at a glance, and be thereby more disposed than they could be by any suggestions of ours to wonder how the belief of a separate soul could ever have been held in conjunction with concurrence in the Apostle's argument; or how grounds of belief in a simul

taneous resurrection of mankind could ever have been found in this portion of the sacred writings.

Having thus briefly explained what view of a very obscure subject appears to us most consistent with all the facts within our reach, (which view, however, we are quite ready to modify or relinquish as soon as fuller evidence shall shew us cause for doing so,) our judgment of Mr. Carmichael's book will be easily anticipated by those of our readers who are already acquainted with it-of as much of it, at least, as relates to the subject we have been considering.

Mr. C., being a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, took his turn to prepare a paper, as the custom is, to be read before the Society. The two first sections of the fittle work before us were prepared for this purpose so long ago as 1817. The remainder was written long afterwards, when the author had found reason to change his philosophical system very extensively, and to retract much which he had formerly advanced. From this singular method of putting a book together, it necessarily arises that there is much inconsistency in the volume, and a vacillation of opinion not a little perplexing to an unpractised inquirer, while no form could perhaps have been better chosen for shewing the true nature of the argument, and for pointing out the direction in which evidence preponderates; or for enabling the reader to judge, on the author's own involuntary shewing, of the progress of the mind of an inquirer, not only from truth to truth, but from strength to strength in the apprehension of truth. Towards the beginning of his book, Mr. C. says,

"The necessary attributes of Spirit, as distinguished from Matter, are the powers of sensation, perception, judgment, and will. Man is endowed with these powers; if they cannot reside in the material substance of which he is composed, they must inhere in an essence similar, however inferior, to the essence of God. There must, therefore, be such an essence, however inferior, in man. That essence is the soul," &c.-P. 3.

Again,

"The philosopher who shall establish even probable grounds for the common opinion of the soul's immortality will be, of all men, the most deserving of the gratitude of his species."-P. 20.

Which opinion, however, he, after an interval of years, believes he "may unhesitatingly retract," having become a materialist, and an advocate for Lawrence on Physiology, and having learned by practice not to set out in an argument with begging the question. The result of the whole of this part of the work is, that the writer overthrows the ancient superstition (as we esteem it) of a separate soul, and not dreaming apparently of any other alternative, adopts with all its difficulties the doctrine of a simultaneous resurrection of the whole human race, excepting of course Christ, Elijah, and probably Moses, and possibly Enoch. As his object is to dwell on the Physical Considerations connected with his various topics, he plunges with his readers into the tossing sea of the ancient metaphysics, where, however some may have found their

they have no right to draw others after them without a prospect of bringing