Chemistry and physiology in their religious bearings : a lecture / by Allen Dalzell.

  • Dalzell Allen, -1869.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chemistry and physiology in their religious bearings : a lecture / by Allen Dalzell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    do not class myself, and to those whose minds are satisfied mth the accuracy of the observations which have been made on this subject, such a theory may be sufficiently acceptable. Y>\xt even if, for the sake of argument, we admit the reality of the odylic phenomena, we can scarcely by such a train of reasoning be said to be advancing towards a clearer conception of the material conditions of a resurrection, inasmuch as there IS no analogy between those conditions which such a theory proposes and any well ascertained fact in science. Cicero has well said: It is easier in philosophy to say what cannot be than what is and such being the case within the domain of himian knowledge, with what additional force does the senti- 'uent apply to the miraculous. The decomposition of the lody is a chemical act, and chemistry explains its minutest details. The resurrection of the body is a miracle, and its < conditions are as much beyond our sphere of philosophizing, as • those which at the marriage feast in Galilee resulted in the I change of water, that is oxygen and hydrogen gas, into ; alcohol, that is oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, with senanthic 1 ether, salts of potash, and other matters not originally ] present. I scarcely conceive it necessary to do more than remind you ! that the physiological , negative laid on a corporeal resurrection 1 as a necessary part of the balance of nature, (that is as a law of nature,) does not in the least interfere with the doctrine of ; the soul's immortahty. The indestructibility of the tliinking : mind, of the soul or spuit, has been universally admitted in every age. Almost at two geographical extremes, the Esquimaux and 1 the Malay, obedient to the custom of their ancestors, leave weapons, food, or sweatmeats in or at the grave. And the ! benighted children of other lands cherish, according to the : particular fancies of their race, a beUef in the continued life of the departed; hunting and other manly exercises, or the voluptuous enjoyments of a more sensual elysium being