Thomas Williams

“ Who is to say what matter can or cannot be made capable of doing when fearfully and wonderfully organized and vitalized by the creative hand of Omnipotence? What is it that feels, sees and hears in the horse--yea, what is it that thinks and retains thoughts, manifesting them in memory, in some animals, too, in a higher degree than in some men? Who will be presumptuous enough to assert that it is not matter? If it is anything besides matter in the animal then the mark is overreached again, in proving the animal in possession of an immateriality which is desired to be limited to man. ”

“ Why are some of these "thinking entities" possessed of so much greater superiority of intellect than others? Why are some not able to think at all--why are there idiots? Moreover, if the thinking entity comes direct from God, why is there not the power of thought in infancy that there is in maturity? And why is not the mind as strong in old age as it is in the full bloom of manhood? ”

“ The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has such a hold upon the people that to challenge it is to arouse the indignant question, What! all of our great men of this day and ages gone by, wrong? Nothing but the courage of strong conviction can meet this, and the question is, how best to induce it to lay down its arms long enough to reason on the matter. ”

“ If we, for the want of any natural law of demonstration, imagine it is the immortal soul, then we have over-reached the mark, because that "something" experiences the results of contact in animals as well as in man. What is it that makes the animal conscious that any part of its body has come in contact with another substance? In other words, where is the seat or center of consciousness in the animal, to which the fact of contact is instantly carried by the electric nerve wires of its natural being? Can we, by the use of our natural senses find the center? ”

“ But suppose we grant for a moment that the soul as the thinking entity operates conjointly with and is dependent upon the brain for the evolution of thought, what then becomes of the theory that it continues to think when the body, with its brain, lies silent in the dust of death? If it depends upon the brain for thought in life then in death there can be no thought. It will not do for philosophy to imagine that when the brain is gone another channel will be provided ”

“ If thought is not a property of matter, what is the use of placing an insane person in the hands of a physician? Surely his professional skill is limited to the domain of matter; and any treatment from him must be based upon the principle that what will restore the brain to a healthy state, or what will remove a disease from any part of the body that affects the brain, will restore soundness of mind. Were he foolish enough to believe that the mind is the product of an immaterial entity, he would never try to reach it with drugs nor by surgical operations ”

“ We, with the approbation of the sacred council, do condemn and reprobate all those who assert that the intellectual soul is mortal, or one and the same in all men, and those who call these things in question; seeing that the soul is not only truly, and of itself, and essentially the form of the human body, as is expressed in the canon of Pope Clement V, published in the general council of Vienne, but likewise immortal * * * And seeing that truth never contradicts truth, we determine every assertion which is contrary to the truth of revealed faith to be totally false ”

“ Upon the hypothesis that every man is possessed of an immaterial entity, and that he depends upon it for his mind, how absurd to believe that insanity is transmissible from generation to generation? If mind comes direct to the child as a quality of an immaterial soul, why do we see traits of character--mental and moral habits--inherited from parents? ”

“ Is the question of whether a body begotten by natural laws shall be supplied with an immortal entity decided by the laws of nature, or is it decided by the direct will of Him of whom the soul is claimed to be a part? ”

“ Man, His Origin and Nature
In dealing with the question of man’s redemption, we must, necessarily, consider the question of his origin and nature; and in doing this we are quite conscious of having much prejudice to contend with. There is a popular side to this question, and it has bred and fostered a sensitiveness which makes the task of reducing it to reason and subjecting it to the light of scripture quite a difficult one. He who would undertake to call in question the popular view must not hope to escape the suspicion of being a troubler, bent upon "turning the world upside down." ”

“ If we can find it in the animal, shall we not be in a fair way of discovering its seat in man? Well, we shall not look for it in its feet, nor in its body; but, instinctively, we shall go to the head of the animal, and when we remove a portion of the skull, we shall find that by pressure upon the brain we are able to stop the consciousness from taking cognizance of contact--the five senses will cease to perform their functions. The animal will be in a state of insensibility. Why is it that the contact of the foot with another substance is not felt now? ”

“ There nature leaves him, and that is as far as it will take us in the investigation of the question, Is the soul immortal? If there is a future life, it must be by a resurrection, a doctrine that nature will not teach and prove to our satisfaction; and if there is to be a resurrection of the dead, we must derive our knowledge of it from Revelation, in the realms of which we will now proceed to further investigation. ”

“ The very same is true of man, and therefore, so far, we have found no reason, viewing the subject from the standpoint of nature, for man’s possession of an immortal soul.
The metaphysician asserts that matter cannot think, and upon this he proceeds to build his theory, adding, "Man thinks, therefore he is more than matter." In the same manner it might be asserted that matter cannot see; the horse sees, therefore he is more than matter. Logic will lie if it is based on a false premise. ”

“ We must persuade the masses that they have or are immortal, or never-dying souls; and that if they do not obey the laws of the State, their souls will be preserved in misery eternally in the fires of Tartarus; but if they are obedient to the laws of their superiors, then their souls will be taken to the happiness of the elysium fields. Hence Plato, alluding to this sentiment says, "If falsehood be indeed of no service to the gods, yet useful to men in the form of a drug, it is plain that such a thing should be touched only by physicians, but not meddled with by private persons. ”

“ It would be difficult to see how natural laws could reach up to heaven, into the very presence of Him who dwells in light unapproachable, and snatch millions of parts of God’s very essence, transform them into individuals, intellectualities--some of them--and deposit them in their respective bodies as these are forced into the world, some of them in direct opposition to the laws of God, and in the lowest depths of depravity, and the offspring of the worst crimes. ”

“ Those in whom truth has produced thorough conviction, will never shirk a duty from fear of popular sentiment. Truth is too precious to be bargained off for the good will and applause of the world, especially truth upon which hangs the question of what is pleasing or displeasing to Him "in whom we live and move and have our being." ”

“ In seeking the answer, experience and observation are not sufficient, for if you ask two men to look at a man and answer the question, What is he? two very different answers will be given. One will say he is a being composed of two natures, that he is an immortal soul and a mortal body ”

“ If it is the duty of honest conviction to face the popular prejudice at all risks in the presentation of truth, it is also the duty of every man to so far overcome prejudice as to investigate for himself in an earnest endeavor to obey the injunction, "Prove all things and hold fast that which is good." ”

“ Mental traits and powers possessed by parents are generally manifest in their children, a fact which is accounted for by what common people call "running through the blood." Bitterness or sourness of the fruit of a tree is transmitted, and no one is foolish enough to claim that these qualities are supernaturally infused into it. Why not allow the same natural laws to operate in man in the production and transmission of temperament, mental powers, and moral proclivities? ”

“ When the theory of eternal torment is treated of in what quotations we make under this heading, it must be remembered that it stands related to the immortality of the soul as effect does to cause. Eternal torment is a necessary outgrowth from the immortality of the soul, for if the soul is immortal and some are to be lost, what can be done with them? They cannot be destroyed ”

“ We should then see that the many faults, idiosyncrasies, idiocy and imbecilities "bred and born" in men are not infused into them as qualities of an immaterial entity direct from heaven; but that they are the results of disease and, many of them, perversion of natural laws, generation after generation. ”

“ Before examining the highest authority, the one that must forever settle the question, it may be profitable to view the subject from the standpoint of nature, for if we find from history and nature that the evidence is against the doctrine the satisfaction of finding the Scriptures in harmony with these will be all the greater. ”

“ The Platonic and the modern beliefs in relation to the soul’s immortality are identical; for the heathen tartarus the Bible term hell has been made to do service in expressing the heathen doctrine of endless misery, and the term heaven to represent that of the elysium fields. It is a question if the same "Pious Fraud" is not secretly perpetuated by the theologians of our times ”

“ On many exploded theories the world in all ages has drifted into the habit of following the popular procession, spurning any attempt of truth to emerge from the obscurity of its shelter in caves and to break into the ranks and sound a word of warning. ”

“ There was a man who had been trepanned, and who perceived that his intellectual faculties were failing and his existence drawing to a close every time the effused blood collected on the brain so as to produce pressure. ”

“ As some luxurious emperors of Rome exhausted the whole art of pleasure, so that a reward was promised to any who should invent a new one, so have Romish persecutors exhausted all the arts of pain, so that it will now be difficult to discover or invent a new kind of it which they have not already practiced upon those marked out for heretics. ”

“ Perseverance, however, has many times succeeded--not that we hope to stop the procession, but the most we can hope for now is to pull a few out of the crowd and help to save them from the precipice ahead. The time for a revolution will come, but not by human effort ”

“ Whether our claims are based upon assumption, however, is the very question we beseech our readers to test, and the only way to test it is to read carefully what we say, and examine impartially the evidence given and then judge ye. ”