On this page

• Text (2)

  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

  • 

    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

    ' * $$ * .- a Jf ight to eiiquire into the in ^ tpi ng of , the word . In aU questions of this kind , an imposing phrase is often substituted for sound argument . How has Europe been imposed upon , for fifteen centuries , by similar artifices ! Was it necessary for the sake of a particular system to make men distrust the evidence of their senses -upon the most common objects ; learning and power found it easy to reconcile to the imagination of a credulous age * that by an unjknown o rganization ^ under the plastic hand of the Almighty , bread was converted into the real

    body an < J blppdof pur blessed Saviour , r The hunjble Christian regarded as rmpious , ' every attempt to ahalize his own idea& or to require itor the jprophatie purpose of gratU fying humatn reasq % vany explana - q | tM % my stenous

    ^ on phraseology of his teachers . ; St ^ cK reflections present themselves wfoeci a word is intruded in explanation , which coaveys uo pne t idea upon the Sjubject \ xx qujesjioiu Can the

    ^ prd . organisation , admit of any o , tkex idcJSihitipn than a certain arrangement of jnateri ^ l atoms > $ e are forced tp .-admit that either % ere is , no such thing as matter * or it must consist of particles of a definite sixe a , nd fo ^ m . We may

    imagine ; th § se pajr ( icles of any size we please , until the materialist shew ^ thfU to answer the purpose of producing thought , they require a certain diameter * Let them , be

    supposed of a visible magnitude , we can pl ^ ce ' thexn two and two , three t ^ od th ree , aod make them pa&s one another in all maun « r of dwctioiis ; wilt , il ^ Q materialist Wily fissext thftt this twda to m ^ ke them conscious pf tfj ^ c ^ wn existcncel or condemn those as

    Untitled Article

    fastidious , who reject this theory of the intellectual powers ? After exhibiting this hypothesis in that state of nakedness which is pecu ^ liar to it , the charge of presumption will not attach to those who rather chme to express their notion of the thinking principle by a negative term , than pretend to embrace a theory , which , instead of solving any difficulty , undertakes to account for one thing by another , which no effort of the

    imagination can place in the relation of cause and effect . * Nor are the notions of the materialist more friendly to the feelings of a religiPus mind , than to the dictates of common sense ; for if intellU

    gence in one instance , be prove ^ to proceed from a certain order in the arrangement of material atoms , the striking proofs of design , in the universe , may not be the effects of governing wisdom ; but mind itself

    may exist ^ as a natural consequence of tbat arrangement . A little reflection ,, however , upon the laws which regulate the material world may reconcile us to the notion of an agency which cannot be rcsolvfd into any of the attributes of matter . The sun acts upon the earthy through more than 80 millions of miles of space : let any one after reading the vari

    ous attempts that have been made to account for this , on the principle of currents and whirlpools of subtile matter ; after being duly '...- -

    • JDr . Priestley , in his observations on Dr . Oswald ' s publication ,, says , * Let atoms move ad infinitum , nothing can result from it but new combinations and positions . For powers such as those of attraction , repulsion , magnetism , electricity , could never be gaiijed by it ; there beirig no conceivable nor possible connection between such a revolution and the ac q uisition of any such powers . "

    Untitled Article

    On the Controversy concerning Matter and Spirit . 713

    Untitled Article

    vol . iv » 4 x

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1811, page 713, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2423/page/9/