A slight sketch of the controversy between Dr. Priestley and his opponents on the subject of his Disquisitions on matter and spirit / [Anon].

  • Badcock, Samuel, 1747-1788
Date:
[1780]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A slight sketch of the controversy between Dr. Priestley and his opponents on the subject of his Disquisitions on matter and spirit / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/64 (page 7)
    I find the firfi: free avowal of an inclination to adopt the fcheme of material ifm, in his animadver- fions on a paflage in the learned Mr. Harris’s Her¬ mes. Thefe animadverfions were annexed to his re¬ ply to the Scotch Doctors, which did not make its appearance till the latter end of 1774. In the firfi: volume of his “ Inftitutes of Rational “ and Revealed Religion,” publifhed in 1772, he treats, towards the conclufion, cc of the future ex- « pedlations of mankind,” on the footing of thofe arguments which have been generally advanced by moral writers, to evince the high probability at leafi:, if not abfolute certainty of a ftate of rewards and pu- nifhments beyond the prefent; of the force of fome of the arguments which have been commonly urged on this fubjedl, he hefitates to pronounce a decifive opinion ; but “ upon the whole (fays he, page 159) 1 I cannot help thinking, that there is fomething in << the arguments above-recixed, which fhew that a <c future life is very agreeable to the appearances <c of this; though I do not think them fo finking as to « have been fufficientof themfelves to have fuggefted cc the firfi: of idea of it.” I know not how to reconcile this declaration ref- pedling the natural evidence of a future Rate,—or the correfpon-