Such an opinion as
this, placing immortality in a certain superficial figure, turns out
of doors all consideration of soul or spirit; upon whose account alone
some corporeal beings have hitherto been concluded immortal, and
others not. This is to attribute more to the outside than inside of
things; and to place the excellency of a man more in the external
shape of his body, than internal perfections of his soul: which is but
little better than to annex the great and inestimable advantage of
immortality and life everlasting, which he has above other material
beings, to annex it, I say, to the cut of his beard, or the fashion of
his coat. For this or that outward mark of our bodies no more
carries with it the hope of an eternal duration, than the fashion of a
man's suit gives him reasonable grounds to imagine it will never
wear out, or that it will make him immortal. It will perhaps be
said, that nobody thinks that the shape makes anything immortal, but
it is the shape is the sign of a rational soul within, which is
immortal. I wonder who made it the sign of any such thing: for
barely saying it, will not make it so. It would require some proofs to
persuade one of it. No figure that I know speaks any such language.
For it may as rationally be concluded, that the dead body of a man,
wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of life than
there is in a statue, has yet nevertheless a living soul in it,
because of its shape; as that there is a rational soul in a
changeling, because he has the outside of a rational creature, when
his actions carry far less marks of reason with them, in the whole
course of his life, than what are to be found in many a beast.
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