12 



cc of physiology ; when you ridicule those who 

 c think it impossible that the living organic 

 " structure should have vital properties, without 

 " some extrinsic aid;" when you assert that* 

 " life consists in organization, and that such or- 

 " ganization is destroyed by death -" when you 

 sneer at the belief f" of thought as an imma- 

 " terial agent, and represent its office as no bet- 

 <c ter than that of a sinecure;" when you deride 

 the supposition of an " immaterial mind" and 

 assert that J" mankind are superior to brutes 

 " only on account of superior organization;" 

 above all, when you speak of death " as that 

 " awful moment from which all sentient beings 

 " shrink back with instinctive dread, as the ter- 

 <e mination of their existence ;" from these and 

 similar passages, I am compelled, however un- 

 willingly, to draw the conclusion, that you have 

 no fixed or settled belief in the immateriality of 

 the soul, or its continuance in a future state of 

 being. 



Certain, at least, I am, whatever may be 

 your own opinion on this subject, such would 

 be the natural effect produced on your hearers. 

 Surely, Sir, if you had not wished these mis^- 

 chievous consequences to be drawn, you should 

 have blended a few cautions and admonitions to 

 the young and unwary. These moral observa- 

 tions would, at least, have been as appropriate 

 as allusions to the Green-bag conspiracy,^ or 



* P. 93. 4- P. 105. $ P. 109. jJ P. 577. 



5 P. 12. 



