You will pardon me, sir, I am sure, for having asked the question.
NORTH.
It was not only a proper question, but a necessary one. Butler wisely says—"This is that kind of Presumption or Probability from Analogy, expressed in the very word Continuance, which seems our only natural reason for believing the course of the world will continue to-morrow, as it has done so far as our experience or knowledge of history can carry us back." I give you, here, the Bishop's very words—and I believe that in them is affirmed a truth that no scepticism can shake.
TALBOYS.
If I mistake not, sir, the Bishop here frankly admits, that were we not fortified against a natural impression, with some better instruction than unreflecting Nature's, the spontaneous disposition of our Mind would undoubtedly be to an expectation that in this great catastrophe of our mortal estate, We Ourselves must perish; but he contends—does he not, sir?—that it would be a blind fear, and without rational ground.
NORTH.
Yes—that it is an impression of the illusory faculty, Imagination, and not an inference of Reason. There would arise, he says, "a general confused suspicion, that in the great shock and alteration which we shall undergo by death, We, i.e. our living Powers, might be wholly destroyed;"—but he adds solemnly, "there is no particular distinct ground or reason for this apprehension, so far as I can find."
TALBOYS.
Such "general confused suspicion," then, is not justified?
NORTH.