A Compendium of Principles in Philosophy and Divinity, Setting Forth the Essential Properties, and Relations of Body and Spirit [&c.]. - Tapa blanda

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1836. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV. ON THE STATE OF SOULS AFTER DEATH. It is impossible to be too attentive to that which constitutes the difference between body and spirit, as it extends so far that spirit has nothing in common with body, nor body with spirit. Extension, inertia, and impenetrability are the properties of body. Spirit is without extension, without inertia, without impenetrability. It is a self-evident truth, that extension cannot have place with respect to spirit; for every thing extended is divisible, and we can form the idea of its parts, but a spirit is susceptible of no division, we can have no conception of its half, or of its third part. Every spirit is a complete being to the exclusion of all parts, it cannot then be affirmed that a spirit has length, breadth, or thickness. In a word, all that we conceive of extension must be excluded from the idea of spirit. To ask in what place does a spirit reside, would be for the same reason likewise an absurd question, for to connect spirit with place, is to ascribe extension to it. We can, therefore, affirm that the soul does not reside in the head, nor out of the head, nor in any particular place, but if our reflection turns on the power which a spirit has of acting upon a body, the action is most undoubtedly performed in a certain place, and, as God possesses the power of acting upon all bodies, it is in this respect, we say, He is every where, though His existence is attached to no place. Every spirit is a being that thinks, reflects, reasons, deliberates, acts freely, and in one word that lives; whereas body, has no other qualities than that of being extended, susceptible of motion, and impenetrable, from whence results this universal quality, that every body remains in the same state as long as there is no ne...