The Mystery of the Soul; A Search Into Man's Origin, Nature, and Destiny
by Stephen Watson Fullom (9781150789649)

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1865 Original Publisher: Skeet Subjects: Soul Theological anthropology Philosophy / Movements / Humanism Religion / Christian Theology / Anthropology Religion / Theology Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. SURVEY OF THE VESTIGES OF MAN, AND THEIR PRETENSIONS TO ANTIQUITY. Nothing is so obstructive of knowledge as a theory. Ptolemy promulgated a theory of the solar system, and philosophy made it a bondage to the human mind for fifteen centuries. It biassed every observer of the heavens, and all phenomena appeared in a false aspect, because it was imperative that they should be brought into harmony with the theory. Nature might mislead, but the theory could not err. Indeed, nothing could be plainer than that the sun moved round the earth, and that the earth was the centre of theuni- verse, and to doubt the fact was to disbelieve one's own eyes. Materialism is equally " positive," and throws a likeveil overthe mind. at a momentwhen Nature is inviting our scrutiny. Science must be seen through the medium of one idea, andwhatever it unfolds must conform to this idea, or we must assume that such conformity does exist, only we have not come at the fact. Surely it were wiser to defer our conclusion till the facts were elicited. " Truth is established by investigation and delay," says Tacitus: " falsehood prospers by precipitancy." And precipitancy is the characteristic of Materialism, which first provides the theory, and then brings the facts to fit. The theory embodies a regular process; the universe is evolved from vapour, life advances from the development of a granule to Man; and man's reason has gradually matured from a rud...

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