On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    465 Strictures on " Physical a ? id Metaphysical Inquiries . *

    Untitled Article

    tions without the possibility of being discovered , and at the same time are so very powerful as to overbalance the properties of the substances-with whteh they combine . " But what is this ( independent of its being an hypothesis , altogether made for the

    occasion , ) but to have recourse to spiritual agency ? For although he calls these suppositions agents kinds of matter , yet they do not agree with his definition page 1 . where matter is defined to be " whatever is cognisable by our senses ; " . but these kinds exist cc without the possibility of being discovered , " except I presume by their effects , in which case they will correspond ex * jBctly with the definition of a spirit . He then proceeds to the

    consideration of light and heat , and although I still think that his opinions with regard to the last of these agents , are more ¦ natural than those in general belief , yet some objections have occurred to me , since I last wrote you , which may probably fur * jii $ h matter for some future letter . In the mean time I shall attend him in his inquiry concerning the origin of matter . He pronounces absurd ,, the making of a thing out of nothing :, by

    which i understand , simply , the causing to ciist , what had not brfore existed . He supports this assertion by saying , pp . 115 and 116 , " We have a clear conception how one thing could l > e made out of another , but we cannot conceive , how a thing could be made out of nothing / ' Now if we are warranted to deny a thing , shuplv , because we cannnot conceive of it , the

    • inquirer upon his own principles , vide page 236 , roust deny the f existence of Deity ; for I contend we can have no conception of ^ a being which can occupy no part of space ^ A few lines farther he says , * There is nothing more obvious , than that no being can g ive what it does not possess / ' This requires examination : if to the word , give , he apply the idea which we have when we 5 ee one man give another a guinea , then , the observation is not

    in point , tor , it would nrst pre-suppose the existence bf material properties in Deity , which is contrary to hypothesis , and secondly , the existence of matter without its properties , which I shewed in my last , is to our judgments impossible . But if by the te , give , he mean the causing particular qualities , then , I think , the contrary of the position may be proven , from what he him-. self says . He denies that our passions and instincts are inherent in matter , and derives them from the designing agent , page

    Itli ct seq . much more must piety and gratitude be derived from the same source ; but it is absurd to suppose that God can be cither pious , or grateful ; here then we have a being , givinff , not only what he does not possess , but what it is absolutely absurd to suppose he can possess j biit to come to the pointy I

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1807, page 466, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2384/page/14/