The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838Gillman, James
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The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838
Gillman, James
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Critics -- Great Britain -- Biography; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Notwithstanding the arguments of Spinosa, and Descartes, and other
advocates of the 'Material system', (or, in more appropriate language,
the 'Atheistical system!') it is admitted by all men not prejudiced,
not biassed by sceptical prepossessions, that 'mind' is distinct from
'matter'. The mind of man, however, is involved in inscrutable
darkness, (as the profoundest metaphysicians well know) and is to be
estimated, (if at all) alone, by an inductive process; that is, by its
'effects'. Without entering on the question, whether an extremely
circumscribed portion of the mental process, surpassing instinct, may,
or may not, be extended to quadrupeds, it is universally acknowledged,
that the mind of man, alone, regulates all the voluntary actions of
his corporeal frame. Mind, therefore, may be regarded as a distinct
genus, in the scale ascending above brutes, and including the whole of
intellectual existences; advancing from 'thought', (that mysterious
thing!) in its lowest form, through all the gradations of sentient and
rational beings, till it arrives at a Bacon, a Newton, and then, when
unincumbered by matter, extending its illimitable sway through Seraph
and Archangel, till we are lost in the GREAT INFINITE!
Is it not deserving of notice, as an especial subject of meditation,
that our 'limbs', in all they do, or can accomplish, implicitly obey
the dictation of the 'mind'? that this operating power, whatever its
name, under certain limitations, exercises a sovereign dominion, not
only over our limbs, but over all our intellectual pursuits? The mind
of every man is evidently the moving force, which alike regulates all
his limbs and actions; and in which example, we find a strong
illustration of the subordinate nature of mere 'matter'. That alone
which gives direction to the organic parts of our nature, is wholly
'mind'; and one mind, if placed over a thousand limbs, could, with
undiminished ease, control and regulate the whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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