1840 EARLY JOURNAL 15 



what will be my opinion ten years hence ? I think now 

 that it is against all laws of justice to force men to support 

 a church with whose opinions they cannot conscientiously 

 agree. The argument that the rate is so small is very 

 fallacious. It is as much a sacrifice of principle to do a 

 little wrong as to do a great one. 



Nov. 22 (Hinckley). Had a long argument with Mr. 

 May on the nature of the soul and the difference between 

 it and matter. I maintained that it could not be proved 

 that matter is essentially as to its base different from 

 soul. Mr. M. wittily said, soul was the perspiration of 

 matter. 



We cannot find the absolute basis of matter : we only 

 know it by its properties ; neither know we the soul in 

 any other way. Cogito ergo sum is the only thing that we 

 certainly know. 



Why may not soul and matter be of the same substance 

 (i.e. basis whereon to fix qualities, for we cannot suppose 

 a quality to exist per se it must have a something to 

 qualify), but with different qualities. 



Let us suppose then an Eon a something with no 

 quality but that of existence this Eon endued with all 

 the intelligence, mental qualities, and that in the highest 

 degree is God. This combination of intelligence with 

 existence we may suppose to have existed from eternity. 

 At the creation we may suppose that a portion of the Eon 

 was separated from the intelligence, and it was ordained 

 it became a natural law that it should have the pro- 

 perties of gravitation, etc. that is, that it should give to 

 man the ideas of those properties. The Eon in this state 

 is matter in the abstract. Matter, then, is Eon in the 

 simplest form in which it possesses qualities appreciable 

 by the senses. Out of this matter, by the superimposition 

 of fresh qualities, was made all things that are. 



