that they found physical Causes effectually to overthrow it. This account we owe to Cicero, one of the best Judges of Antiquity, who tells us plainly, that the Reason why many rejected the Belief of the Immortality of the Soul was because they could not form a Conception of an unbodied Soul. So that Infidelity is of no older a Date than Philosophy; and a future State was not doubted ef till men had puzzled and confounded themselves in their Search after the physical Reason of the Soul's Immortality. And now consider how the Case stands, and how far the Evidence of Nature is weakened by the Authority of such Unbelievers. All Mankind receive the Belief of a future Life, urged to it every Day by what they feel transacted in their own breasts: but some Philosophers reject this opinion, because they have no Conception of a Soul distinct from the Body; as if the Immortality of the Soul depended merely upon the Strength of human Imagination. Were the natural Evidence of Immortality built upon any particular Notion of a human Soul, the Evidence of Nature might be overthrown by showing the Impossibility or Improbability of such Notion: but the Evidence of Nature is not concerned in any Notion; and all the common Notions may be false, and yet the Evidence of Nature stand good, which only supposes Man to be rational, and consequently accountable; and if any Philosopher can prove the contrary, he may then, if his word will afterwards pass for anything, reject this and all other Evidence whatever. Discourses preached at the Temple, i. dis. 6.

Infidelity tested.

I wish every Man who argues against the Christian Religion, would take this one Serious Thought along with him, that he must one day, if he believes that God will judge the World, argue the case once more at the Judgment-Seat of God: and let him try his Reasons accordingly. Do you reject the Gospel, because you will admit nothing that pretends to be a Revelation? Consider well; is it a Reason that you will justify to the face of God? Will you tell him, that you had resolved to receive no positive Commands from him, nor to admit any of his Declarations for Law? If it will not be a good Reason then, it is not a good Reason now; and the stoutest Heart will tremble to give such an impious Reason to the Almighty, which is a plain Defiance to his Wisdom and Authority. Ib., i. dis. I.

149. Edward Young, 1681-1765. (Handbook, pars. 192, 193.) Has many scattered thoughts very impressive. His poems were long very popular.

Introduction to the Night Thoughts.

Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep,
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear,

...

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps. "Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end. . . .
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time,

But from its loss.

Is wise in man.

To give it then a tongue

As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.

It is the signal that demands despatch;

How much is to be done! my hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what? A fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How passing wonder He who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes,
From different natures marvellously mix'd!
Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb'd!

Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm! a god!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wond'ring at her own: How reason reels!
Oh, what a miracle to man is man!

Triumphantly distress'd! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd !

What can preserve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

Procrastination.

Night Thoughts, Night i.

Be wise to day: 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still. . . .

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage: when young, indeed,
In full content we, sometimes, nobly rest,

Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.

At thirty man suspects himself a fool;

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;

At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves; and re-resolves; then, dies the same.

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but themselves.

Ib., Night ii.

'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, And ask them what report they bore to Heaven.

Night Thoughts, Night ii. 1. 376.

Thoughts shut up, want air,

And spoil like bales unopened to the sun.

Ib., Night ii. 1. 466.

How blessings brighten as they take their flight!

Ib., Night ii. 1. 602.

The chamber where the good man meets his fate,
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.

Ib., Night ii. 1. 633.

A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man.

Ib., Night iii.

Pity swells the tide of love.

Ib., Night iii. 1. 104.

Man feels a thousand deaths in fearing one. Ib., Night iv.

That life is long which answers life's great end.

He sees with other eyes than theirs
Behold a sun, he spies a deity. . . .

Ib., Night v. 1. 773.

where they

They things terrestrial worship as divine,
His hopes immortal blow them by as dust. . .
His joys create, their's murder, future bliss.

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less and glows in every heart:
The proud to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.

Love of Fame, Satire 1.

Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.

Ib., Satire i, 1. 89.

Where nature's end of language is declined,
And men talk only to conceal their mind.

Time elaborately thrown away.

In records that defy the tooth of time.

Ib., Satire ii. 1. 207. The Last Day, bk. i.

The Statesman's Creed,

Fond man! the vision of a moment made
Dream of a dream! and shadow of a shade;

What worlds hast thou produced, what creatures famed,
What insects cherished, that thy God is blamed?

Paraphrase of the Book of Job: deemed by some
his finest work.

The Death of Altamont.

The evening before the Death of that noble youth whose last Hours suggested these Thoughts I was with him. No one was there but the Physician, and an Intimate whom he lov'd and whom he had ruin'd. At my coming in, he said; 'You and the Physician are come too late. I have neither Life nor Hope. You both aim at Miracles. You would raise the Dead.' Heaven, I said, was merciful. Or I could not have been thus guilty. What has it done to bless and to save me! I have been too strong for Omnipotence! I pluck'd down Ruin.' . . . I was about to congratulate this passive Confessor, when he thus very passionately. 'No!-no! let me speak on. I have not long to speak, my much injured friend! My Soul as my Body lies in ruins; in scattered fragments of broken thought: Remorse for the Past throws my thought on the Future. Worse dread of the Future strikes it back on the Past. I turn and turn and find no ray. Didst thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldst struggle with the Martyr for his Stake: and bless Heaven for the Flame:-That is not an everlasting flame; That is not an