I have
tried to show that the human mind was inevitably and irresistibly
led to the distinction of being into me and not-me, spirit and
matter, soul and body. Now, who does not see that the objection
of the materialists proves the very thing it is intended to deny?
Man distinguishing within himself a spiritual principle and a
material principle,--what is this but Nature herself, proclaiming
by turns her double essence, and bearing testimony to her own
laws? And notice the inconsistency of materialism: it denies,
and has to deny, that man is free; now, the less liberty man has,
the more weight is to be attached to his words, and the greater
their claim to be regarded as the expression of truth. When I
hear this machine say to me, "I am soul and I am body," though
such a revelation astonishes and confounds me, it is invested in
my eyes with an authority incomparably greater than that of the
materialist who, correcting conscience and Nature, undertakes to
make them say, "I am matter and only matter, and intelligence is
but the material faculty of knowing.
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