Philosophy of mind, developing new sources of ideas, designating their distinctive classes, and simplifying the faculties and operations of the whole mind.

  • John Stearns
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Philosophy of mind, developing new sources of ideas, designating their distinctive classes, and simplifying the faculties and operations of the whole mind. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    However difficult it may be clearly to comprehend the preceding proposition, it may be more perfectly elucidated, if we are permitted to consider the soul to be an infinitesimal part of Deity ; and I am not conscious of any very solid objections to the assumption of this ground. At the same time, I am aware that even the suggestion will be met with objections of the most solemn character, and perhaps with the asseverations of profanity. Such arguments I conceive to be more sophistical than solid, and better calculated to prolong an unprofitable controversy, than to produce conviction, or any decisive result. I shall therefore make no farther allusion to such objections, but merely add a few remarks in vindication of this course. The universe is filled with the Spirit of God. No portion of it can for a moment be supposed to be destitute of his actual presence. When, therefore, God breathed into man, and he became a living soul, will it be said that this was a new creation, or a portion of that spirit which pervades the universe] We must also consider that spirit is only another word for breath ; and that the sentence might very properly be rendered thus : ' God breathed into man his spirit; and he became a living soul.' This also designates the precise time when the soul is received into the body; for as with the breath of the Creator, his spirit was imparted to the first man, so we may con- clusively infer that the soul is imparted to the infant with its first inspiration. Another figurative allusion to the creation of man, ' the rock from which he had been hewed,' fortifies the opinion that the soul is an emanation from his Creator. Sustained by these and other arguments that might te adduced, I shall assume the position that the soul is an infinitesimal part of Deity, without any reference to consequences that might be urged in its refutation: although I deem it perfectly immaterial to the issue of this theory, whether the soul be a new creation, or a part of Deity; as the power which creates, can, with equal facility, render it perfect in either case. The ways of God are beyond our comprehension, and to Hia wisdom do we submit the results, without attempting to reconcile them with the very limited views which we are permitted to take of his plans and operations. We can only say with David : ' We are fearfully and wonderfully made !' I assume only what appears to be the clear and obvious construc- tion of the Bible, as the basis of the theory which I have endeavored to sustain. Beyond this I cannot presume to go. I cannot enter the confines of fancy, and adopt the interminable productions and absurd hypotheses of creative imaginations. Fortunate would it have been