But among these and other excellent arguments for the immortality of the soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to its perfection, without a possibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved by others who have written on this subject, though it seeras to me to carry a very great weight with it.

4.  How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul which is capable of such immense perfection, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created? are such abilities made for no purpose?  A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pass:  in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present.

5.  Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of further enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away insensibly; and drop at once into a state of annihilation.

6.  But can we believe a thinking being; that is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her enquiries?

A man considered in his present state, seems only sent into the world to propagate his kind.  He provides himself with a successor, and immediately quits his post to make room for him.

——­Haeres. 
Haeredem alterius velut unda supervenit undam.

HOR.  Ep. 2. 1. 2. v. 175

——­Heir crowds heir, as in a rolling flood
Wave urges wave. 
                               CREECH.

7.  He does net seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others.  This is not surprising to consider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their business in a short life.  The silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies.  But a man can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to subdue his passions, establish his soul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the stage.

8.  Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose?  Can he delight in the production of such abortive intelligences, such short-lived reasonable beings?  Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be gratified?  How can we find that wisdom which shines through all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick successions, are only to receive the first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity.