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thcr sense iC what shall it profit a man , if he gain the world , and lose his soul ?'' The materialist teaches that " The WHOLE MAN is
dissipated at death : " then have we not lost all ? where is our identity ? where is our consciousness ? where is our hope of a future life ? The materialist answers these questions by telling us that a
transfer of the same systems of feelings and habit to any system of matter . * for he is not so absurd as to expect a resurrection of the same body and a soul lie believes there is none , will constitute
identity , and answer every moral purpose : but this is very difficult of comprehension , and is a notion which I think tends to weaken and unsettle the religious principle
in the minds of rnen and must create some apprehension that the lamp when once extinguished may be never lighted up again .
One argument against the existence of the soul is that we cannot form any distinct idea of its substance or its nature ; nor discern how it is connected with the body . And what do we know of the nature and substance of the
air , of caloric , or the matter of heat , of light , of the electric , galvanic , or magnetic fluids ? Yet we do not dispute their existence . What know we of the nature and
substance of the deity ? that unseen power that reared up the mighty fabric of the universe ; that has supported it to the present moment . We cannot discern his presence ; we cannot fathom his nature , nor ascertain his
essence , yet we must acknowledge his existence , and his presence , for we see it in all his works We are obliged then to acknowledge the
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existence of one invisible bein
invisible power governs the universe . Our ignorance of the nature of the soul and the manner of its op .
peration ought no more to lead us to dispute its existence than we would on the same ground dispute the existence of God . The materialist maintains that
thought and perception are the mere result of a particularly organized state of matter : but it is in the nature of things entirely inconceivable and incredible that
thought should arise from matter , however shaped or however its particles might be arranged : if this were the case it would be an amusing and interesting question to know if a circle were wiser than a
square ? If the materialist should contend that a faculty or quality of thinking is superadded by the
Deity to a system of matter ; I either know not what he means , or it is in effect granting me all I contend for . There cannot be a quality of thinking without a thinking being ; a mere quality cannot have an abstract existence , whatever is a quality must be a quality of some substance : ^' are obliged to associate in out
minds the two ideas . If then a faculty of thinking be superadded to matter , in order to constitute the man , there must also be added a thinking substance or being , which is all that I mean to contend for . If the materialist , to be mor «
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1811, page 408, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2418/page/24/
