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HPB-SB-10-29: Difference between revisions
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| author = Atkinson Henry G, F.G.S. | | author = Atkinson Henry G, F.G.S. | ||
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| source title = Spiritualist | | source title = London Spiritualist | ||
| source details = No. 367, September 5, 1879, pp. 117- | | source details = No. 367, September 5, 1879, pp. 117-18 | ||
| publication date = 1879-09-05 | | publication date = 1879-09-05 | ||
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... | <center>By Henry G. Atkinson, F.G.S.</center> | ||
{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|10-30}} | {{Style S-Small capitals| In}} Professor Blackic’s recent work, ''The Natural History of Atheism, ''he does me the honour to quote largely from my ''Letters to Hiss Martineau, ''though long out of print, and published so far back as 1851. He ought rather to have referred to my long letter to Harriet Martineau, which she thought proper to insert in her ''Autobiography, ''headed “''What Man Can Know,” ''which Kant proclaimed to be ''the ''great question of philosophy, the nature of knowledge, and how to be obtained. However, in referring to Professor Tyndall, Professor Blackie says:—“The concluding lines, indeed, from Wordsworth, which the learned gentleman has italicised, arc distinctly Pantheistic: | ||
{{Style P-Poem|poem=“A motion and a spirit that impels | |||
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, | |||
And rolls through all things;”}} | |||
{{Style P-No indent|and might have added—and rules throughout, and is the source of all power, which was Bacon’s theory, and accepted by Newton.}} | |||
But one does not see how it implies Pantheism, or the personality of nature in the god Pan, or conscious directing intelligence; for without consciousness it would not be personal, but automatic, and the rule of law—as we suppose in the case of the spider weaving its web so like a consciously contrived device to a foreseen end. But as the creature is without experience that could hardly be, and such instincts may be termed “unconscious clairvoyance.” | |||
In the June number of Mr. Hands’ work, ''New Views of Matter, Life, Motion, and Resistance, ''p. 7, there is as follows:—“During the above-named year (1845) it was my fortunate destiny to meet with a case of clairvoyance, which natural phenomenon became developed through my own manipulations (mesmeric), and at a first sitting. I would here remark that this most extraordinary ability burst unexpectedly upon my senses, and in an instant swept away all distrust as to the being of a soul, or of its future existence; and this after I had professed scepticism, as regards these subjects, for many years. Now, why clairvoyance should be the proof of a soul and of its future existence any more than the blind instinct of the spider, is what I have never heard advanced before. If Mr. Hands is justified in his conclusion, spiritism would hardly be regarded as of so much importance as before, and Mr. Harrison might well devote his great abilities to some more profitable labour. I find, then, the same absence of philosophical and logical acumen in Mr. Hands as with Professor Blackie and Mr. Serjeant Cox, whose argument for the existence of a soul, because of the change of the substance of the body whilst the sense of identity remains, I exposed in this journal not long since, and to which there was no reply. I hold that there can be no absolute proof of a soul but in its actual disembodied presence, with clear evidence of identity; and then considering the nature of the subject and the existence of clairvoyance, the difficulty of identifying {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|10-30}} | |||
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<gallery widths=300px heights=300px> | |||
london_spiritualist_n.367_1879-09-05.pdf|page=11|London Spiritualist, No. 367, September 5, 1879, pp. 117-18 | |||
</gallery> | |||