There is only one occasion, when philosophy will think it necessary and even honourable to justify herself, and that is, when religion may seem to be in the least offended; whose rights are as dear to her as her own, and are indeed the same.

If any one, therefore, should imagine that the foregoing arguments are any ways dangerous to religion, I hope the following apology will remove his apprehensions.
There is no foundation for any conclusion a priori, either concerning the operations or duration of any object, of which it is possible for the human mind to form a conception.

Any object may be imagined to become entirely inactive, or to be annihilated in a moment; and it is an evident principle, that whatever we can imagine, is possible.

Now this is no more true of matter, than of spirit; of an extended compounded substance, than of a simple and unextended.

In both cases the metaphysical arguments for the immortality of the soul are equally inconclusive: and in both cases the moral arguments and those derived from the analogy of nature are equally strong and convincing.