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But leaft any doubt the truth of fuch affertions, we can produce a living inftance of this kind in a country. man of our own, now living in Philadelphia, who was for 48 hours to all appearance dead, in the year 1781: His flory, as related by himself, is as follows, and which can also be confirmed by the atteftation of a number of other gentlemen now in Boften, who were in that neighbourhood, and to whom the fact is well knewn.

"I was feized with a putrid fever in Champagne, in the year 1781, of which I was ill a confiderable while. At the time I was recovering, I found my appetite voracious which was alfo obferved by my friends. I was 20cordingly watched, left I fhould hurt myfelf. The nurse that attended me had a little girl in the houfe, who was playing with an unbaked or half-baked cake. I took an opportunity of devouring this, in the abfence of the nurse. About noon, being feized with a new and violent fever, was put to bed, and about 9 or 10 o'clock, in the evening (as I have fince underflood) I expired. I was confidered as Ian heretic (which proved a most fortunate circumftance) and refufed burial. The gentleman of the house, had, from acquaintance, acquired an attachment, and was much affected at my fudden death, and became uneasy about my interment. After a great deal of difficulty and interceffion, he obtained, from the head of fome order in the neighbourhood, permiffion to bury me,but that it must be at midnight, and very privately. The grave was accordingly prepared, and coffin brought: But it is not cuftomary to put the corpfe into it, until juft before it is carried away. In this flate therefore, it remained 48 hours.

My

friend continued conftantly in the room. About 11 o'clock, an hour

before the remains were to be carried away, this gentleman was tempted to put his hand on my face, but found it cold. He then laid it on my breaft, and thought he felt a warmth. This alarmed him. He immediately went away to the phyfician: But commuhicating his difcovery to no one in the family, except the nurfe, who was ordered to remain in the chamber

with the corpfe, and the door to be

an apothecary who had been in the fame circumftances, and they together prevailed upon the phyfician to fee it. Every method was used to recover it, and after much difficulty, evident tokens of life were discovered. I was for fometime very weak, wild and loft, and thought crazy, but have at length recovered perfe& health. Thus was I within an hour of being fhut up in the place of flence."

It may, therefore, reasonably be fuppofed, that though in the two cafes mentioned above, by de Haen, the organs of refpiration had ceased to act; yet not only the principle of life was fii! prefent for fome time, but that fome degree of circulation was carried on, and confequently fome heat generated. Now, if the final cause of respiration be to carry off and temper the heat generated in the fyftem, it plainly follows that if any heat be ftill produced after this ceafes, that heat muft accumulate in the body, and keep up its temperature. This however, will feldom ob. tain at the fame debility which put a ftop to the organs of breathing, muft in a fhort time abolish the powers of the heart and arteries. It is however, highly probable, that the circulation is not flopt fo early as is generally imagined.

It is our duty then to be extremely cautious in pronouncing people irrecoverably loft, and interring them before evident fymptoms of putrefaction have taken place; fince it appears, by experiment, that life may remain after the fubfultory motion of the heart hath ceased, the pulfation of the arteries become imperceptible, and every indication of breathing ceased.

Reflections upon the Life and Death of Edward Drinker, of the city of Philadelphia, who died Nov. 17, 1782, in the 103d year of his age. Written by an ingenious literary Gentleman of that city, for the amusement of a Lady. E

DWARD DRINKER was born on the 24th of December, 1680,

in

in a (mall cabin near the prefent corner of Walnut and Second Streets in the city of Philadelphia. His parents came from a place called Beverly, in Massachusets Bay. The banks of the Delaware, on which the city of Philadelphia now ftands, were inhabited at the time of his birth by Indians, and a few Swedes and Hollanders. He often talked to his companions of picking huckleberries, and catching rabbits on fpots now the most populous and improved of the city. He recollected the fecond time William Penn came to Pennsylvania, and used to point to the place where the cabbin flood, in which he and his friends that accompanied him were accommodated upon their arrival. At twelve. years of age he went to Boston, where he ferved an apprenticeship to a cabinet maker. In the year 1745, he returned to Philadelphia with his family, where he lived till the time of his death. He was four times married, and had 8 children, all of whom were by his firft wife. At one time of his life he fat down at his own table with 14 children. Not long before his death he heard of the birth of a grandchild to one of his grandchildren, the fifth in fucceffion from himfelf.

He retained all his faculties till the laft years of his life; even his memory, fo early and fo generally dimi

fhed by age, was but little impaired. He not only remembered the incidents of his childhood or youth ❤, but

the events of later years ; and so faith-” ful was his memory to him, that his fon informed me that he never heard him tell the fame flory twice, but to companies. His eye fight failed him different perfons, and in different hearing was uniformly perfect and unmany years before his death, but his impaired. His appetite was good till within a few weeks before his death. He generally ate a hearty breakfaft of a pint of tea or coffee as foon as he got out of his bed, with bread and butter in proportion. wife at eleven o'clock, and never failHe ate likegroffeft folid food. ed to eat plentifully at dinner of the He drank tea in He had loft all his teeth 30 years bethe evening, but never ate any fupper. ing exceffive hot fmoke of tobacco infore his death (his fon fays, by drawto his mouth) but the want of fuitaprevent its fpeedy digeftion, nor imble maftication of his food did not pair his health. Whether the gums, hardened by age, fupplied the place of his teeth in a certain degree, or whether the juices of the mouth and flomach became fo much more acrid by time, as to perform the office of diffolving the food more speedily and more perfectly, I know not; but I have often observed, that old people are more fubject to cxceffive eating

It is remarkable, that the incidents of childhood and youth are feldom remembered or called forth till old age. I have fometimes been led, from this and other circumftances, to fufpect that nothing is ever loft that is lodged in the memory, however it may be buried for a time by a variety of causes. How often do we find the tranfactions of early life, which we' had reafon to fuppole were loft from the mind forever, revived in our memories by certain accidental fights or founds, particularly by certain notes or airs in mufic! I have known a young man fpeak French fluently when drunk, that could not put two fentences together of the fame language when fober. He had been

taught when a boy perfectly, but had forgotten it from difufe. The Countefs of L-v-1 was nurfed by a. Welsh woman, from whom the learned to speak her language, which the foon forgot after the had acquired the French,which was her mother tongue. In the delirium of a fever, many years afterwards, he was heard to mutter words which none of her family or attendants understood. perceived that the founds, which An old Welfh woman came to fee her, who foon were fo unintelligible to the family, were the Welsh language. When the fingle word of the language she had, recovered the could not recolle&t a. fpoken in her fickness. I can conceive great advantages may be derimemories, in the advancement of the ved from this retentive power in our mind towards perfection in knowledge (fo effential to its happiness) in the future world.

than

than young ones, and that they fuffer fewer inconveniences from it. He was inquifitive after news in the last years of his life; his education did not lead him to increase the ftock of his ideas in any other way. But it is a fact well worth attending to, that old age, inftead of diminishing, always increases the defire of knowledge. it must afford fome confolation to thofe who expect to be old, to discover that the infirmities, to which the decays of nature expofe the human body, are rendered more tolerable by the enjoy ments that are to be derived from the appetite for fenfual and intelle&ual food.

The fubject of this hiftory was remarkably fober and temperate. Neither hard labour, nor company, nor the ufual afflictions of human life, nor the waftes of nature, ever led him to an improper or exceffive ufe of frong drink. For the last 25 years of his life he drank twice every day a draft of Toddy, made with two table fpoons full of fpirit, in half a pint of water. His fon, a man of 59 years of age, told me he had never feen him intoxicated. The time and manner, in which he used fpirituous liquors, I believe, contributed to lighten the weight of his years, and probably to prolong his life. Give wine to him

that is of a heavy heart, and ftrong "drink to him that is ready to perish" [with age as well as with ficknefs.] "Let him drink and forget his forrow, and remember his mifery no more." He enjoyed an uncommon fhare of health, infomuch that in the courfe of his long life he was never confined more than three days to his bed. He often declared that he had no idea of that moft diftreffing pain called the head-ach. His fleep was interrupted a little in the laft, years of his life, with a defluxion, in his breaft, which produced what is commonly called the old man's cough.

The character of this aged citizen was not fummed up in his negative quality of temperance; he was a man of a molt amiable temper; old age had not curdled his blood; he was uniformly chearful and kind to every body; his religious principles were as fteady as his morals were pure; he attended public worship above thirty years, in the Rev.Dr.Sproat's church,

and died in a full affurance of a happy immortality. The life of this man is marked with feveral circumstances which perhaps have feldom occurred in the life of an individual; he faw and heard more of thofe events which are measured by time, than have ever been feen or heard by any man fince the age of the patriarchs; he faw the fame fpct of earth in the courfe of his life covered with wood and bushes, and the receptacle of beafs and birds of prey, afterwards become the feat of a city, not only the firft in wealth and arts in the new,but rivalling in both many of the firft cities in the old world. He faw regular ftreets, where he once purfued a hare; he faw churches rifing upon moraffes where he had often heard the croaking of frogs; he faw wharves and warehoufes where he had often feen Indian favages draw fish from the river for their daily fubfiftence; and he faw.. hips of every lize and ufe in thofe ftreams where he had been used to. fee nothing but Indian canoes; he faw a fately edifice Alled with legiflators, aftonishing the world with their w.fdom and virtue, on the fame spot probably where he had feen an Indi an council-fire; he faw the firft treaty ratified between the newly confederated powers of America, and the ancient monarchy of France, with all the formalities of parchment and feals, on the fame spot probably, where he once faw William Penn ratify his first and last treaty with the Indians, without the formalities of pen, ink or paper; he faw all the intermediate ftages through which a people pafs from the moft fimple to the most complicated degrees of civilization; he faw the beginning and end of the empire of Great Britain in Pennfyl

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Difquifition on the Nature of

W

Time...

From a late Publication. E are fo accuftomed to connect our ideas of time with the hiftory of what paffes in it, that is, to miftake a fucceffion of thoughts and actions for time, that we find it extremely difficult, perhaps impoffible, totally to feparate them from each otter and indeed, had we power to effect this in our minds, all human language is fo formed, that it would fail us in our expreffion: yet certain it is, that time, abftracted from the thoughts, actions, and motions which pars in it, is actually nothing: it is only the mode in which fome created Beings are ordained to exift, but in itfelf has really no existence at all.

Though this opinion may seem chimerical to many, who have not much confidered the fubject, yet it is by no means new, for it was long fince adop. ted by fome of the moft celebrated philofophers of antiquity, particular ly by the Epicureans; and is thus well expreffed by Lucretius:.

Tempus item per fe non eff; fed rebus ab ipfis Confequitur fenfus, tranfa&um quod

fit in ævo,

Tum quæ res inftat,quid porro deinde Tequatur;

Nec per fe,quemquam tempus fentire, fatendum eft, Semotum ab ufum, motu, placidaque quiete.

Time of itself is nothing; but from thought

Receives it's rife, by lab'ring fancy wrought, From things confidered; while we

think on fome

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days; by dividing thefe days we form hours, minutes, and feconds; and by multiplying them, months, years, and ages; then by measuring these imaginary periods against each other, and beftowing on each diftin&t denominations, we give them the appearance of fomething real: yefterday, which is paft, and to morrow, which is not yet come, affume the fame reality as the prefent day; and thus we imagine time to resemble a great book, one of whofe pages is every day wrote on, and the reft remain blank, to be filled up in their turns with the events of futurity; whilf in fa&t this is all but the delufion of our own imaginations, and time is nothing more, than the manner in which paft, prefent, and future events fucceed each other; yet is this delufion fo correfpondent with our prefent ftate, and fo woven up with all human language, that without much reflection it cannot be perceived, nor when perceived can it be remedied: nor can I, while endeavouring to prove time to be nothing, avoid treating it as fomething in almoft every line.

There feems to be in the nature of things, two modes of exiftence; one, in which all events, paft, present, and to come, appear in one view; which, if the expreffion may be allowed, I fhall call perpetually inftantaneous; and which, as I apprehend, conftitutes Eternity; the other, in which all things are prefented feparately, and fucceffively, which produces what

we call Time.

Of the firft of these human reason can afford us no manner of conception; yet it affures us, on the frongeft evidence, that fuch muft be the exiftence of the Supreme Creator of all things, that fuch probably may be the exiftence of many fuperior orders of created Beings, and that fuch poffibly may be our own in another ftate: to beings fo conftituted, all events paft, prefent, and future are prefented in one congregated mafs, which to us are spread out in fucceffion to adapt them to our temporary mode of perception in thefe ideas have no fucceffion, and therefore to their thoughts, a&ions, or exiftence, time, which is fucceffion only, can bear not the leaft relation whatsoever. To

exiflence

existence of this kind alone can eternity belong; for eternity can never be compofed of finite parts, which, however multiplied, can never be come infinite; but muft be fomething fimple, uniform, invariable, and indivisible; permanent, though inftantaneous, and endless without progreffion. There are some remarkable expreffions both in the Old and New Teftament, alluding to this mode of exiftence; in the former, God is denominated I AM; and in the latter, Chrift fays, "before Abraham was, I amt" both evidently implying duration with fucceffion : from whence the schoolmen probably derive their obscure notions of such a kind of duration, which they explain by the more obscure term of PUNCTUM

STANS.

With the other mode of exiflence we are fufficiently acquainted, being that in which Providence has placed us, and all things around us, during our refidence on this terreftrial globe; in which all ideas follow each other in our minds in a regular and uniform fucceffion, not unlike the tickings of a clock; and by that means all objects are prefented to our imaginations in the fame progreffive manner: and if any vary much from that deftined pace, by too rapid, or too flow a motion, they immediately become to us totally imperceptible. We now perceive every one, as it paffes, thro' a fmall aperture feparately, as in the Camera Obfcura, and this we call time; but at the conclufion of this ftate we may probably exift in a manner quite different; the window may be thrown open, the whole prospect appear at one view, and all this apparatus, which we call time, be totally done away for time is certainly nothing more, than the shifting of fcenes neceffary for the performance of this tragi-comical farce, which we are here exhibiting, and muft undoubtedly end with the conclufion of the draIt has no more a real effence, independent of thought and action, than fight, hearing, and (mell have independent of their proper organs, and

ma.

*Exod. iv. 14 John viii. 58.

the animals to whom they belong and when they ceafe to exift, time can be no more. There are alfo feveral paffages in the fcriptures, declaring this annihilation of time, at the confummation of all things: "And the Angel, which I faw ftand upon the fea and the earth, lifted up his hands towards heaven, and fwore by him that liveth for ever and ever, &c. that there fhould be time no longer. *"

To this opinion of the non-entity of time it has by fome been objected, that time has many attributes and powers inherent in its nature; and that whatever has attributes and powers, muft itself exift: it is infinite, fay they, and eternal; it contains all things, and forces itfelf on our imaginations in the absence of all other exiftence: but to this it may be anfwered, that the human mind is able in the very fame manner to realize nothing; and then all the fame attributes and powers are applicable with equal propriety to that nothing, thus fuppor fed to be fomething:

Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n

to fhade!

Thou hadft a Being, e're the world was made,

And well fix'd art alone, of ending not afraid.

Nothing is infinite, and eternal; that is, hath neither beginning nor end it contains all things; that is, it begins where all exiftence ends; and therefore furrounds and contains all things: it forces itfelf on the mind, in the abfence of all exiftence; that is, where we fuppose there is no existence, we muft fuppofe there is nothing: this exact resemblance of their attributes and powers, more plainly de monftrates, that time is nothing.

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