These have latterly been called electrolytic; and decomposition, by the voltaic series, has been called electrolysis, by Farraday—a beautiful, well-conceived, and expressive word. (See Essay on Electrical Theory, in the Appendix.)
[43] It were absurd to draw any conclusion from this, that incomprehensibility is a reason for believing the miracles ascribed to Mohammed or any other religious impostor. That we cannot understand how a result is accomplished is no reason for disbelieving it in opposition to the evidence of our senses; but, at the same time, it forms no reason for believing, of itself, but is rather a clog upon belief, when intuitively awakened.
[44] In this last sense it is used as synonymous with essence. By chemists, latterly, spirit of turpentine is called oil of turpentine. All the volatile oils obtained by delicate distillation, usually with water, like oil of turpentine, are called essential oils or essences.
As respects the employment of language to express ideas when a new view is originated, there is a choice of evils; we are placed between Scylla and Charybdis. There is no alternative but to use an old word in a sense more or less new, or to coin a new one. In either case there is a manifest disadvantage; and the question arises, shall we teach a new meaning for an old word, or present to those to whom we would convey our ideas a new idea with a new word to designate it? The word matter, it will be found, has, in Webster’s dictionary, ten meanings assigned to it. Though in some of its acceptations it may be considered as applicable to every thing that exists, so as to qualify space so far as to distinguish it from nihility. Nevertheless, it has been used as distinguishing those substances which are neither spiritual nor mental. The antagonism of spirit and matter in the words, “There is a spiritual body and a material body,” is not warranted in chemistry, since the distillate or spirit evolved by distillation is a material body, however it may be more volatile or of less density than the caput mortuum left in the alembic or retort.
[45] It is a remarkable fact that, although in later times the Jews have been so frequently named after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it does not appear to have been customary during the time which intervened between the supposed era of Moses and that of the finding of the Pentateuch in the temple.
This serves to show that the Pentateuch is a fabrication of the priesthood and King Josiah.
[46] The following trash is thus made to be specified by the God of the universe:—gold, silver, brass, blue, purple, goats’ hair, red rams’-skins, badger skins, shittim-wood, oil for light, oil for anointing, spices, sweet incense, onyx-stones, shew-bread, candlesticks with six branches, almond-shaped bowls with a knop and a flower, knop and branches of beaten gold, seven lamps, large dishes, curtains of fine linen, spoons, cherubims of gold. Eight columns, nearly one hundred verses, are taken up with this mummery, expressly directed by Jehovah himself.
Now, let the use Moses made of his opportunities be compared with that which I have made of those afforded me by the spirits, and then judge between Spiritualism and self-called orthodoxy.
[47] “Nec ab ipso scriptum constat, nec ab ejus apostolis sed longo post tempore a quibusdam incerti nominis viris, qui ne sibi non haberetur fides scribentibus quæ nescirent, partim apostolorum, partim eorum que apostolos secuti viderentur nomina scriptorum suorum frontibus indiderunt, asseverantes SECUNDUM cos, se scripsisse quæ scripserunt.—Quoted by Lardner, vol. 2, p. 221.
[48] “By all persons, understanding strictly all parsons, for the common people were nobody, and never at any time had any voice, judgment, or option in the business of religion, but always believed that which their godfathers and godmothers did promise and vow that they should believe. God or devil, and any Scriptures their masters pleased, were always all one to them.