work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7027,"","Searching ""clog,"" ""body,"" and ""soul"" in Google Books",2011-07-21 13:52:43 UTC,"Your system teaches us, that we are partly mortal and partly immortal; or are both mortal and immortal at the same time. Hence it is common for believers in an immortal soul, to speak of their mortal and immortal part, and that at death the immortal part has taken its flight to God in heaven, or has sunk into hell beneath. But I ask, is the mortal part animated by the immortal? If this be true, there is no death in the case. Death is only the removal of an immortal soul from dead matter, which many have considered merely as a clog to the soul. And if the man is as complete without the body, as he is without the house he resides in, the immortal soul ought to be thankful when it gets quit of the body. And instead of believing in or hoping for a resurrection of it from the dead, the soul ought to pray and hope that such a thing may never take place. And if the man, the immortal soul is complete without the body as you affirm, there is just as little propriety in raising it to punish it after the resurrection, as in punishing the house in which a man commits murder. In fact, Sir, if this doctrine of yours be true, the judge ought to condemn the immortal soul to be hung instead of the body, for the body was no more to be blamed for the murder, than the dagger is with which the horrid deed was done. But your doctrine of an immortal soul is not only at war with the principles of the Bible, but with that of reason, justice, and common sense.
(pp. 352-3)",,18954,"","""Death is only the removal of an immortal soul from dead matter, which many have considered merely as a clog to the soul.""","",2011-07-21 13:52:43 UTC,Letter XII
7305,"",Reading,2012-07-24 19:48:59 UTC,"When I take up a work that I have read before (the oftener the better) I know what I have to expect. The satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. When the entertainment is altogether new, I sit down to it as I should to a strange dish,--turn and pick out a bit here and there, and am in doubt what to think of the composition. There is a want of confidence and security to second appetite. New-fangled books are also like made-dishes in this respect, that they are generally little else than hashes and rifaccimentos of what has been served up entire and in a more natural state at other times. Besides, in thus turning to a well-known author, there is not only an assurance that my time will not be thrown away, or my palate nauseated with the most insipid or vilest trash,--but I shake hands with, and look an old, tried, and valued friend in the face,--compare notes, and chat the hours away. It is true, we form dear friendships with such ideal guests—dearer, alas! and more lasting, than those with our most intimate acquaintance. In reading a book which is an old favourite with me (say the first novel I ever read) I not only have the pleasure of imagination and of a critical relish of the work, but the pleasures of memory added to it. It recals the same feelings and associations which I had in first reading it, and which I can never have again in any other way. Standard productions of this kind are links in the chain of our conscious being. They bind together the different scattered divisions of our personal identity. They are land-marks and guides in our journey through life. They are pegs and loops on which we can hang up, or from which we can take down, at pleasure, the wardrobe of a moral imagination, the relics of our best affections, the tokens and records of our happiest hours. They are ""for thoughts and for remembrance!"" They are like Fortunatus's Wishing-Cap—they give us the best riches—those of Fancy; and transport us, not over half the globe, but (which is better) over half our lives, at a word's notice!
(pp. 65-6)",,19890,"","""Standard productions of this kind are links in the chain of our conscious being. They bind together the different scattered divisions of our personal identity.""",Fetters,2012-07-24 19:48:59 UTC,""