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

    Mr . Abernethy , on the contrary , like all Ii « materialists , edges in his own hypothesis , and endeavours to define that which he pronounces undiscoverable * A theory of Mr . John Hunter ' s is the grand specific prescribed for the prevention and cure of Mr . Lawrence ' s influence . He has since exhibited it

    ija several subsequent forms—in a little anonymous tract on the Human Mind , dedicated to ( by ) himself ; and lately in some reflections on Dr . Gall and Spurtzeim ' s System of Physiognomy and Phrenology . Indeed , from the assiduity with which this grand

    tnentai catholicon is published , we expect some morning to see John Hunter ' s name supersede on the walls and churches of the metropolis , * Dr . Eady , Dean Street , Soho . " Leucippus , we remember , described the vital principle as a certain blue flame ; and

    this Hunterian hypothesis of Mr . Abernethy ' s may be termed the Pillula Salutaria , or blue pill of his metaphysics . Whatever effect this physiological opinion may have on his patients , most certain it is that it did not preserve the faith of Mr . Hunter himself , who was u notorious Atheist . And the Deism of Sir William

    Drurnmond , enveloped in clouds of immateriality , is a pretty practical proof how little this vaunted nostrum is a stay to infidelity . We had intended here to have made some remarks on the scepticism imputed to the medical profession , and to have ventured some observations on

    the causes of it , and the most probable remedy , but we defer them to some future occasion . The immortal Hartley , Dr . Percival and Dr . Rush , have , however , been distinguished exceptions . In an ingenious work of the latter on the diseases of the mind , he

    classes one which he calls the " Derangement in the Principle of Faith , or the Believing Faculty , " and enumerates two classes of diseased—those who believe and report every thing they hear , and those who have an iimbility lo believe things that are

    supported by all the evidence that usually enforces belief : amongst these last he ranks " persons who refuse to admit humau testimony in favour of the truths of the Christian religion , believing in all the events of profane history .- * Ch . xi . In the commencement of this paper

    Untitled Article

    we intended also to have quoted at some lengthjfrom the 9 ti * article in our notice , " The Letter- on the r ^ Suted Immateriality of the Human ouL" We can now only commend it to our readers as a most impartial

    and intelligent review , coinciding almost entirely with our own opinions and we have the greater pleasure ui these commendations , understanding its author is a clergyman of the Establishment .

    1 he anonymous author of the " Cursory Remarks , " is an alarmist of the old school , and deals wholesale in the odium theologicum . And the " Graduate of Medicine" might have saved himself , the public , the paper manufacturer and printer , much trouble , by not going to press , with the candid

    contession that he knows nothing of the subject . The remaining volume , < c Sketches of the Philosophy of Life / by Sir C . Morgan , though an imposing title , is rather a shallow performance , and exhibits depth only in verbal mystification , as will appear in the following sentence , quoted also by the Quarterly Review : a bog of

    mystification , m which we think scarcely a recondite German metaphysician could see . his way of extrication . iC EssentiaJly linker ! with the power of loco-motion , relative sensibility is distributed to the different animals in an exact proportion to the wants of their organization , being resident in a tissue , whose developement is regulated in the vaiious species , by the sphere of activity

    necessary to their preservation \ —P . 27 G . We would now ask the " Christian Advocate of Cambridge , " whether he really considers such arrant nonsense as endangering * the existence of Chris tianity ; and whether these hopeless

    disputes of Physiologists ( past the comprehension of the " learned" themselves ) can possibly influence the religious principles of the poor and unlearned , for whom Christianity iras preached ? " Certainly / ' says Bishop Fell , " the first propagators of olir

    iaith proceeded at another rate ; they well knew , that not the brain but the heart was the proper soil of that celestial plant , and therefore did not amuse their proselytes with curious questions , but set them to the active part of their religion . " We esteem all these metaphysical cobwebs as more fit " to catch flie *

    Untitled Article

    \ J $ Review . — Recent Controversy on Mater ialkm .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 178, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/50/