"Thus I have opened my mind to you, more fully than I have ever done before, on this subject; and notwithstanding your writings may be very beneficial to others (as well as mine, for some may stand in need of one, and some of the other) yet, here comes up my doubts again, if I am benefited by them, I expect it will be in a different way than that of being any more persuaded of the truth of divine revelation. Nevertheless, I am no less anxious to continue the correspondence on this account.
"Your address to TRUTH, which you are pleased to put into the mouth of my argument, is closed with an idea which does not grow out of my hypothesis. 'The joyous expectation of soon losing sight of thee (i. e. truth) forever in the ellysium of non existence!' _Non-existence_, sir, does not _exist_! Neither does the term convey an idea to my understanding of any thing. I know of no existence, neither can I conceive of any, except that which I believe to be eternal in its nature. And the idea of _something_ being formed or made out of _nothing_, or of something's returning to nothing again, I have long since exploded. Every thing, however, excepting first principles, is liable to _change_. Hence arises the various modes, states, circumstances, conditions and situations in beings and things: also their different properties, relations and dependences.
"I know not whether consciousness is a being, or whether it be only a mode of being. If it be the former, it always did, and always will exist, in some state or other; if the latter, the state of the being may be so changed that although identity exists, yet consciousness is not there. And there is no more absurdity in this idea than there is in supposing that the same matter which forms a _cube_, may become a _globe_. I can as well conceive of a conscious being to day, becoming unconscious to-morrow, as I can conceive of a person in a sound sleep. But _non-existence_ (strictly speaking) sounds to my understanding something like the _falsity of truth_!
"I now come to your reply to my sixth number; and in my remarks, which will be but few, I shall follow the arrangement which you have made.
"1st. The candid concessions which you have made, and the charity which you have extended towards doubting Christians, or candid unbelievers (for such I conceive there may be) is honourable both to yourself and to the cause which you have espoused, and your writing, of course gains a much more favourable reception than the writings of those who appear to be filled with a spirit of acrimony, and are ready at once to deal out anathemas against every thing of which they cannot approve. But, sir, you will permit me to say, we ought to be cautious, lest our personal attachment to an author, and his charitable feelings towards us be such, as imperceptibly to blind us to correct reason, and cause us to imbibe his errors, merely because they are his, and mistake them for truth.