Title | Why I left the church |
Series Title | Pamphlets for the million; no. 1 |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Contributor (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | Watts & Company |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1912 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Subject.Name (LCNAF) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 46 pages; 19 cm. |
Original Item Location | BX4668.3.M33A3 1912 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304505~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 27 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_5792348_026.jpg |
Transcript | T WHY I LEFT THE CHURCH 27 or must we retreat step by step as the biologist advances, at each step betraying the weakness of our logic? Remember that the last step is the spirituality of the human soul. For many years it seemed to me that such a criterion was available. The properties of mind are very different from those of matter. If we are logical, and if we remember a little controversial history, we shall not infer forthwith that mind must be the manifestation of spirit, not an outgrowth of matter. But if we can show that the properties of mind are not merely different, but contradictory. entirely opposed to those of matter, we may defy the progress of the Materialist. No addition of nonentities will produce a being (except in the brain of a Hegel), no multiplication of ciphers will give a number. Now, consciousness itself is not a phenomenon of this character. There is, indeed, a vast gulf between the movements of the molecules of the brain and the states of consciousness which accompany them; but we have no satisfactory reason for asserting that the gulf will never be traversed. No Theist will deny that matter could have been endowed with consciousness, like Leibnitz's monads, if the Creator so willed—in point of fact, unorganised matter is not; but it is strange to infer that, therefore, organised matter cannot be the subject of consciousness. When the new science of psycho-physics has pursued its investigations into the relation between cerebral changes and states of consciousness for a considerable time, and when the comparative anatomy of the nervous system has made equal progress, perhaps the problem will \ |