Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4Jefferson, Thomas
History
Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
the unceasing motion and circulation of matter through the animal,
vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, never resting, never annihilated,
always changing form, and under all forms gifted with the power of
reproduction; the theist pointing ‘to the heavens above, and to the
earth beneath, and to the waters under the earth,’ asked, if these did
not proclaim a first cause, possessing intelligence and power; power
in the production, and intelligence in the design, and constant
preservation of the system; urged the palpable existence of final
causes; that the eye was made to see, and the ear to hear, and not that
we see because we have eyes, and hear because we have ears; an answer
obvious to the senses, as that of walking across the room, was to
the philosopher demonstrating the non-existence of motion. It was in
D’Holbach’s conventicles that Rousseau imagined all the machinations
against him were contrived and he left, in his Confessions, the most
biting anecdotes of Grimm. These appeared after I left France; but I
have heard that poor Grimm was so much afflicted by them, that he kept
his bed several weeks. I have never seen the Memoirs of Grimm. Their
volume has kept them out of our market.
I have been lately amusing myself with Levi’s book, in answer to Dr.
Priestley. It is a curious and tough work. His style is inelegant and
incorrect, harsh and petulant to his adversary, and his reasoning flimsy
enough. Some of his doctrines were new to me, particularly that of his
two resurrections: the first, a particular one of all the dead, in body
as well as soul, who are to live over again, the Jews in a state of
perfect obedience to God, the other nations in a state of corporeal
punishment for the sufferings they have inflicted on the Jews. And he
explains this resurrection of bodies to be only of the original stamen
of Leibnitz, or the human _calus in semine masculino_, considering that
as a mathematical point, insusceptible of separation or division. The
second resurrection, a general one of souls and bodies, eternally to
enjoy divine glory in the presence of the Supreme Being. He alleges that
the Jews alone preserve the doctrine of the unity of God. Yet their God
would be deemed a very indifferent man with us: and it was to correct
their anamorphosis of the Deity, that Jesus preached, as well as to
establish the doctrine of a future state. However, Levi insists, that
that was taught in the Old Testament, and even by Moses himself and the
prophets. He agrees that an anointed prince was prophesied and promised:
but denies that the character and history of Jesus had any analogy with
that of the person promised. He must be fearfully embarrassing to the
Hierophants of fabricated Christianity; because it is their own armor in
which he clothes himself for the attack. For example, he takes passages
of scripture from their context (which would give them a very different
meaning), strings them together, and makes them point towards what
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