" After this, the assembly turned to the other
stranger, who in the world had been a POLITICIAN. He confessed that he
did not believe in a life after death, and that respecting the new
information which he had heard about it, he thought it all fable and
fiction. "In my meditations on the subject," said he, "I used to say to
myself, 'How can souls be bodies?--does not the whole man lie dead in
the grave?--is not the eye there; how can he see?--is not the ear there,
how can he hear?--whence must he have a mouth wherewith to speak?
Supposing anything of a man to live after death, must it not resemble a
spectre? and how can a spectre eat and drink, or how can it enjoy
conjugial delights? whence can it have clothes, houses, meats, &c.?
Besides, spectres, which are mere aerial images, appear as if they
really existed; and yet they do not. These and similar sentiments I used
to entertain in the world concerning the life of men after death; but
now, since I have seen all things, and touched them with my hands, I am
convinced by my very senses that I am a man as I was in the world; so
that I know no other than that I live now as I lived formerly; with only
this difference, that my reason now is sounder.
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