Remarks on Scepticism, Especially as It Is Connected with the Subjects of Organization and Life; Especially as It Is Connected with the Subjects of ... Sir T. C. Morgan, and Mr. Lawrence, Upon T - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1819. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X. The immediate Agency of God in the Communication and the Preservation of Life.--Conclusion. If a bullet were suddenly to break the window of the room in which we happened to be sitting, and to lodge itself in the opposite wall, it would be rather difficult to persuade us that this bullet found its way into the room of its own accord, without being fired from a pistol or some other engine of similar power. Upon taking the bullet from the wall, we should find that it was a substance, subject to all the laws of matter, and that though it lately moved with so extraordinary a rapidity, it was now totally inert, and would continue so for ever, unless actuated by some external force. We might be wholly ignorant of the nature of the engine from which it was projected, but we should not therefore entertain a doubt of its projection. Yet the Sceptic will see an activity far more extraordinary in the body of a plant, of an animal, and of a man, and will at the same time deny the existence pi any principle of motion superadded to their structure. The body, no less than the bullet, is a mass of inert and passive matter. In the body of him that died yesterday, there is the eye, but it cannot see; there is the ear., but it cannot hear; there is the blood, but it cannot circulate. All is cold, stiff, and motionless. In some canes the structure is as perfect as ever, in others some principal vessel is ruptured. Yet here, as in the case of the bullet, we can account for the cessation of the motion from some external cause. The question still recurs, from whence did themption originally arise, the body having nothing essentially active either in its nature or its construction. "Prom "its vital properties," the Sceptic will triumphantly rejoin. Which answer, in pl...