to conclude from _analogy_, that nature uses it after the
manner she does the other substance, _matter_. She employs it as a
kind of paste or clay; modifies it into a variety of forms or
existences; dissolves after a time each modification, and from its
substance erects a new form. As the same material substance may
successively compose the bodies of all animals, the same spiritual
substance may compose their minds: Their consciousness, or that
system of thought which they formed during life, may be continually
dissolved by death, and nothing interests them in the new
modification. The most positive assertors of the mortality of the
soul never denied the immortality of its substance; and that an
immaterial substance, as well as a material, may lose its memory
or consciousness, appears in part from experience, if the soul be
immaterial. Seasoning from the common course of nature, and without
supposing any new interposition of the Supreme Cause, which ought
always to be excluded from philosophy, _what is incorruptible must
also be ingenerable_. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed
before our birth, and if the former existence noways concerned us,
neither will the latter. Animals undoubtedly feel, think, love,
hate, will, and even reason, though in a more imperfect manner than
men: Are their souls also immaterial and immortal?"[41]

Hume next proceeds to consider the moral arguments, and chiefly

" ... those derived from the justice of God, which is supposed to
be further interested in the future punishment of the vicious and
reward of the virtuous."

But if by the justice of God we moan the same attribute which we call
justice in ourselves, then why should either reward or punishment be
extended beyond this life?[42] Our sole means of knowing anything is
the reasoning faculty which God has given us; and that reasoning
faculty not only denies us any conception of a future state, but fails
to furnish a single valid argument in favour of the belief that the mind
will endure after the dissolution of the body.

" ... If any purpose of nature be clear, we may affirm that the
whole scope and intention of man's creation, so far as we can judge
by natural reason, is limited to the present life."

To the argument that the powers of man are so much greater than the
needs of this life require, th