On the sense of touch, or Physiology and philosophy opposed to materialism and atheism / by J. Augustine Smith.

  • Smith, John Augustine, 1782-1865.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the sense of touch, or Physiology and philosophy opposed to materialism and atheism / by J. Augustine Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    ber, variety, and arrangement of our atoms. The meta- physician now steps in, and shows, that the pretended ex- planation is no explanation at all, since we know no more what gives rise to physical, than we do what produces moral phenomena. The same refined, but not therefore inaccurate reasoner, further insists, and as to the bare fact, every one of neces- sity accords with him, that there are two trains of events going on, the one within, the other without us, which events have no similarity—nothing whatever in common. It is not therefore he says, more a maxim in philosophy, than a dic- tate of sound sense, that causes cannot be entirely the same, where effects are utterly diverse. On the whole, then, I trust the problem has been solved, and that it has been proved that there does more than a single, solitary element enter into the composition of man. That though formed of the dust, as he doubtless was, yet was there breathed into his nostrils by his Creator a more subtile—a diviner essence. And this brings us to the second branch of our subject. Had man indeed a Cre- ator, or more generally, had the universe one, or has it ex- isted from all eternity ? That it has so existed is maintained by a class of reason- ed, who have wandered still more widely, and more de- plorably from the right path, than those whose errors we have just been combating. I allude to the Atheists. Their number is, I believe, small, but they rank among them some eminent names, that of La Place for example. In opposing the doctrines of these unhappy persons, it would be, of course, useless to quote the Bible. The argu- ment must, therefore, be one of pure philosophy. And the mode in which I propose to conduct it, is to inquire