A discussion on the automatic powers of the brain : being a defence against Rev. Charles Beecher's attack upon the philosophy of mysterious agents, in his review of "spiritual manifestations" / by E.C. Rogers.

  • Rogers, E. C. (Edward Coit)
Date:
1853
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A discussion on the automatic powers of the brain : being a defence against Rev. Charles Beecher's attack upon the philosophy of mysterious agents, in his review of "spiritual manifestations" / by E.C. Rogers. 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.)

    17/74
    Hartley, Cabanis, Destut Tracey, Lawrence, nor any of the like class of materialists, made that thorough analysis of human phenomena that true philosophy requires. Like my reverend reviewer, they lumped the whole. But having tested a few, and found them cerebral material, they inferred that all were material — the mere play of nervous matter, which, when decomposed, left no trace of an imma- terial entity. Now, the only difference between Mr. Beecher and the material philosophers is in the idea he entertains that all the phenomena originating in the brain are from a spiritual and immortal entity. But he entirely agrees with them in supposing but one class of phenomena in this direction. Here is just where Mr. B. becomes infidel to me: for here it is he sides with the materialists against me. The truth is, that my view is no more opposed by Mr. B. than by the materialists themselves, excepting where the latter have taken more care to study and understand my views, and have more faithfully represented them. So far, then, instead of my philosophy being consonant with that of materialists, it is Mr. Beecher that sides with them, in opposition to me. Why, then, should he represent me as a materialist, or as advocating materialism, denying to man an immortal spirit 1 What reason had he for hitch- ing upon me that name, at which all Christendom hisses and utters anathemas ? Why, he saw that on one side of my analysis of human phenomena there was a class of facts which materialists have been wont to quote as evidence that man has no soul. Forthwith he is frightened,— smells the stench of sepulchres, dead men's bones,— stops not to examine further, but flies precipitately. He had seen enough, scented enough; 't is all death, sheer annihilation, complete destruction, and he must report it to the world; and so he tells the spiritual rappers and community that the disciples of the material school could not in any way more effectually promote their ends than by a republication of Dr. Rogers' book condensed, with Dr. Cooper's tracts on materiaTism appended. From this, he learnedly con- cludes that the argument for the natural theory of the 2