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    If this is iryured , thought is interrupted ; if it is destroyed , thought dies ; and when it has been deprived of the security provided by the God of nature , as in the case of trepanning , it is then liable to many casualties ^ to much interruption , and to those inconsistencies which we call madness . The

    disease called water in the brain is fatal , because the sensorium , from whence our sensations , as well mental as corporeal ^ spring , cannot bear the least oppression ; of so extremely delicate a frame is it . Is the immaterial substance

    drowned by the water ? fi you destroy a body containing electric fluid , you do not destroy the fluid along with it ; it would certainly fly off , " &c . And so this immaterial something , of which Mr . P . fain would not

    be dispossessed , when Death , the great chymist , decomposes the man , will fly off like an electric spark to some other body , and take possession of it . Let it be

    remembered , that it was on this false philosophy was built the Pythagorean notion of the transmigration of the soul ; and it was also in this way the demoniacal

    possessions were accounted for by the Jews of old ; and it must be allowed that if the premises of the argument are just , the conclusion is not unreasonable . But the

    analogy assumed by Mr . P . is not a fair one . He states that one species of matter , when separated from that in which it resides , will seek another residence , which is the necessary effect of the law of attraction- But we are not able

    to say that th

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    any experiment to elucidate this interesting fact . As philosophers therefore , we ought to presume there is no such affinity or alliance . u Every part of the brain has been deeply injured without affecting the act of thought , '' without we presume , destroying the act of thought . Every external part of the body of man has been injured

    and destroyed without destroyina his sensation , although it has in ! jured it . So thought may not be destroyed though it is essenti . ally injured by accidents . If the brain be injured there is a pro .

    vision made for its being repaired and if it be not repaired the thinking principle will never be complete again . This is anevi . dence that , although slight injuries may be sustained by the brain but repaired by the force of

    nature , a serious assault cannot be borne by the head any more than it can by the body , without its system sustaining irreparable injury . One heavy blow on the brain will finish a man . [ To be concluded in our next , ]

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    Against Materialism . Letter III Boston ^ June I , 1811 . Sir , ' Perhaps it will be objected to what I have advanced that the

    gospel grounds our future life on a resurrection , I answer , So do I , understanding it to mean that operation or event by which the Jiving , thinking principle is disenvelloped from the dead matter or

    corruptible body and enters into a new state of being . This operation may probably take some little time , according to a general law of nature ; therefore , in the cases of recovery from drowning *

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    598 Against Materialism . Letter III .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1811, page 598, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2421/page/22/