Have we existed before birth? It is difficult to conceive the
possibility of this.... If we have _not_ existed before birth; if, at
the period when the parts of our nature on which thought and life depend
seem to be woven together, they _are_ woven together; if there are no
reasons to suppose that we have existed before that period at which our
existence apparently commences; then there are no grounds for
supposition that we shall continue to exist after our existence has
apparently ceased. So far as thought and life is concerned, the same
will take place with regard to us, individually considered, after death,
as had place before our birth. It is said that it is possible that we
should continue to exist in some mode totally inconceivable to us at
present. This is a most unreasonable presumption.... Such assertions ...
persuade indeed only those who desire to be persuaded. This desire to be
for ever as we are--the reluctance to a violent and unexperienced change
which is common to all the animated and inanimate combinations of the
universe--is indeed the secret persuasion which has given birth to the
opinions of a Future State.
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