Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

OF MATTER, MINI), AND 8PIRIT. 391spirit, wliieli is soinctimes coufouuded with miiid. In its original sense,this word merely denoted a thin or refined matter, such as air, wind,breath. In clu'inistry, it has been applied to every thing obtained by distillation,as, for instance, spirit of wine, spirit of salt, spirit of nitre, ofvitriol, spirit of turpentine.*1001. llencc^ by analogy, when the mind of a mortal, after death, wasseen, or supposed to be seen, in a shadowy form called a ghost or shade, itwas conceived to be the spirit or essence of the mortal body which it hadinhabited. It was the body which the mind took or kept for its integumentsafter abandoning its perishable mundane casket, as the spirits arewont to call the carnal body.1902. It is difficult for us mortals to conceive of mind without such aspiritual body. Yet, agreeably to information from my spirit friends, thesubstances of which the bodies, the country, and habitations of spirits areconstituted, seem to have the attributes of materiality no less than thesubstances of which the bodies, the territory, and the habitations of mortalsare constituted. Their spiritual substances perform for them the sameoffices as our material substances do for ours, yet it is expedient to distinguishthem by diffi}rent appellations, and those cited here have been sanctionedb}^ custom at least as far as the time of St. Paul, or when thesewords in Genesis were first used :'' The spirit of God moved on the surfaceof the water."1903. Hence, the words materialism and materialist have been madesynonymous with unbelief or unbeliever in a future state of spiritualexistence.1904. Spirit has also been confounded with, mind or soul, or so associatedthat we speak of the spirit of a friend, when intending to conveythe idea of soul or mind.1905. The soul seems to be understood as the basis both of the passions* lu this last sense it is used as synonymous with essence. By chemists, latterly, spiritof turpentine is called oil of turpentine. All the volatile oils obtained by delicate distillation,usually Tvith 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 isno 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 j and the question arises, shall we teach anew meaning for an old word, or present to those to whom we would convey our ideas anew idea with a new word to designate it ? The word matter, it will be found, has, inWebster's dictionary, ten meanings assigned to it ? Though in some of its acceptations itmay be considered as applicable to every thing that exists, so as to qualify space so faras to distinguish it from nihility. Nevertheless, it has been used as distinguishing thosesubstances which arc neither spiritual nor mental. The antagonism of spirit and matterin 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 itmay be more volatile or of loss density than tho caj^ut mortuum left in the alembicor retort.