On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
to send its poison out to the world . It was scarcely necessary for him to allude to the place in which tire Lectures were delivered—it was a place licensed by royal charter ; but he would contend , if such Lectures were allowed to be
delivered there , that the charter would be as bad as the plaintiff ' s copyright : he , however , understood that the plaintiff was no longer Lecturer there . He had nothing , certainly , to do with the place where the Lectures were delivered : but
lie would deal with him in his character of an author , and he would dilate on the poison disseminating from him as a lecturer to a school , the pupils of which were afterwards to become practitioners of surgery . Looking at it as the work of an author , it did not require criticism to shew its evil tendency , for it Was as clear as the sun at noon . The learned
counsel was proceeding with his argument , when he was interrupted by The Lord Chancellor , who stated that he should stop there for the present , as he was obliged to attend elsewhere .
Mr . JVetherell this day resumed his argument . He had but little further to add to what he had said on Thursday The article in The Quarterly Review called the work in question an open avowal of the doctrine of Materialism .
It was also reprobated for the pernicious tendency of its principles by The Edinburgh Medical Review y which said that it was calculated to lead the minds of his pupils into darkness worse than the darkness of the vall % y of death ; and by the
vicar of Kensington , who was the Christian Lecturer Sn Cambridge . The book , he contended , had the same object as the doctrine of the French Imperialists , namely , to establish the belief that death was an eternal sleep , and that , therefore , we were not hereafter to be accountable
for our actions in this life . The learned counsel concluded , with expressing his regret that such great learning , taste and talent , as this work evinced , should be combined with such dangerous principles ;
which , being calculated to subvert the doctrines of our religion , deprived the work of all claim to protection on the score of copyright ; he therefore submitted that the injunction ought to be dissolved .
Mr . Hose followed on the same side , and referred to Dr . Priestley ' s case , where it was determined that , although a work might contain much valuable information .
yet if it was directed against the institutions of the country , the law would afford it no support . He also referred to the case of Mr . Southey ' s book , and the work of Lord Byron the other day , in which
Untitled Article
the Court , to use the language of the poet , refused to " set its seal on Cain , " and sent him forth a wanderer through the world . The pernicious princi ples contained in these Lectures were not the native growth of this country , but were sought for in the doctrines of forei gn professors , and imported here from the Gerjnau and French schools . The teamed
counsel then read a passage from the Dedication , which he said was the first passage complained of : the second was in page 98 , where the learned professor said , that the Mosaic account of the origin of mankind , as contained in the book of Genesis , did not make it quite clear that all the world had been peopled by the descendants of Adam and Eve ; and treated the account of the
circumstances of the deluge as a zoological impossibility . Mr . Lawrence ( Mr . Rose continued ) had subtilely condensed into one passage all the venom contained in a whole chapter of Gibbon . He then read an extract from page 422 , in which
Professor Lawrence contended , from the peculiar organization of the brain , that it was the seat of the sentient principle , which necessarily depended upon it for existence , and that the annihilation of the one must inevitably involve the annihilation of the other . He also read other
passages , in which it was stated that many writers had doubted the inspiration of the scriptural writers : and containing other observations , the tendency of which , the learned counsel argued , was subversive of our faith ; and they were the more dangerous , from the author ' s scholarlike
command of language , and his scientific manner of treating his subject ; which , acting upon undisciplined minds , was calculated to subdue and bring them under its controul , and thereby work the greater mischief .
Mr . Shadwell , on behalf of the p laintiff . suported the injunction . He was obligee to his friend , Mr . Wetherell , for lll ( manner in which he laid the question befor the Court . He had condemned tlu work on the ground of its professing tin doctrine of Materialism . The docrine oi
Materialism was two-fold . One species oi Materialism limited the existence of man to this world only . That was a doctrine which he ( Mr . Shadwell ) would hi : tinlast person in existence to say one word in defence of . Wnt there was anothei
species of Materialism , which says , that the sentient principle of man depeiin ^ upon the organic structure of the bod ) , and therefore cannot have a separate < istence ; but does not deny that both may exist hereafter , when the resurrection <» the body takes place . That was pciitrU )
Untitled Article
316 Intelligence—Late Report : Luwrence V . Smith .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1822, page 316, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2512/page/60/
-