Butler holds that any justifying ground of the apprehension that, in the shock of death, I, the living Being, or, which is the same thing, These my powers of acting, enjoying, and suffering, shall be extinguished and cease, must be found either in "the reason of the Thing" itself, or in "the Analogy of Nature." To say that a legitimate ground of attributing to the sensible mortal change a power of extinguishing the inward life is to be found in the Reason of the Thing, is as much as to say, that when considering the essential nature of this great and tremendous, or at least dreaded change, Death, and upon also considering what these powers of acting, of enjoying, of suffering, truly are, and in what manner, absolutely, they subsist in us—there does appear to lie therein demonstration, or evidence, or likelihood, that the change, Death, will swallow up such living Powers—and that We shall no longer be.
TALBOYS.
In short, sir, that from considering what Death is, and upon what these Powers and their exercise depend, there is reason to think, that the Powers or their exercise will or must cease with Death.
NORTH.
The very point. And the Bishop's answer is bold, short, and decisive. We cannot from considering what Death is, draw this or any other conclusion, for we do not know what Death is! We know only certain effects of Death—the stopping of certain sensible actions—the dissolution of certain sensible parts. We can draw no conclusion, for we do not possess the premises.
SEWARD.
From your Exposition, sir, I feel that the meaning of the First Chapter of the Analogy is dawning into clearer and clearer light.
NORTH.
Inconsiderately, my dear sir, we seem indeed to ourselves to know what Death is; but this is from confounding the Thing and its Effects. For we see effects: at first, the stoppage of certain sensible actions—afterwards, the dissolution of certain sensible parts. But what it is that has happened—wherefore the blood no longer flows—the limbs no longer move—that we do not see. We do not see it with our eyes—we do not discern it by any inference of our understanding. It is a fact that seems to lie shrouded for ever from our faculties in awful and impenetrable mystery. That fact—the produce of an instant—which has happened within, and in the dark—that fact come to pass, in an indivisible point of time—that stern fact—ere the happening of which the Man was alive—an inhabitant of this breathing world—united to ourselves—our Father, Brother, Friend—at least our Fellow-Creature—by the happening, he is gone—is for ever irrecoverably sundered from this world, and from us its inhabitants—is Dead—and that which lies outstretched before our saddened eyes is only his mortal remains—a breathless corpse—an inanimate, insensible clod of clay:—Upon that interior sudden fact—sudden, at last, how slowly and gradually soever prepared—since the utmost attenuation of a thread is a thing totally distinct from its ending, from its becoming no thread at all, and since, up to that moment, there was a possibility that some extraordinary, perhaps physical application might for an hour or a few minutes have rallied life, or might have reawakened consciousness, and eye, and voice—upon that elusive Essence and self of Death no curious searching of ours has laid, or, it may be well assumed, will ever lay hold. When the organs of sense no longer minister to Perception, or the organs of motion to any change of posture—when the blood stopped in its flow thickens and grows cold—and the fair and stately form, the glory of the Almighty's Hand, the burning shrine of a Spirit that lately rejoiced in feeling, in thought, and in power, lies like a garment done with and thrown away—"a kneaded clod"—ready to lose feature and substance—and to yield back its atoms to the dominion of the blind elements from which they were gathered and compacted—What is Death? And what grounds have we for inferring that an event manifested to us as a phenomenon of the Body, which alone we touch, and hear, and see, has or has not reached into the Mind, which is for us Now just as it always was, a Thing utterly removed and exempt from the cognisance and apprehension of our bodily senses? The Mind, or Spirit, the unknown Substance, in which Feeling, and Thought, and Will, and the Spring of Life were—was united to this corporeal frame; and, being united to it, animated it, poured through it sensibility and motion, glowing and creative life—crimsoned the lips and cheeks—flashed in the eye—and murmured music from the tongue;—now, the two—Body and Soul—are disunited—and we behold one-half the consequence—the Thing of dust relapses to the dust;—we dare to divine the other half of the consequence—the quickening Spark, the sentient Intelligence, the Being gifted with Life, the Image of the Maker, in Man, has, reascended, has returned thither whence it came, into the Hand of God.
SEWARD.