Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1851-02-07

TIE SPIRITUAL BoDY.-The following ex-
tract from Des Guay's Letters to a man OF the
World, developes theory of life which may
serve to account for the fact which we published
the other day from the Medical and Surgical
Journal, viz: that of sensation in an amputated
limb Commonwealth.
"The soul or spirit Of man is a substantial be-
ing, having the human form; or, in ether words,
the soul or spirit of man is q real being having a
spiritual body, endowed with all the organs which
constitute the material body with which it is
clothed. Thus the spirit alone receives life, and
II tie material body seems to live it is because
the spirit lives in all the parts which constitute
this body---the spirit is the man; the material
body is but garment with which the Creator
has covered it, according to the laws of order,
that it may perform its functions in the natural
world.
Thus the human form belongs to the spirit,
and the body has this form only because it re-
ceives it from the spirit.
These truths, my dear sir, will excite your as
constituent; but it will be easy for me forthwith
to make you understand, that the material body
of man can only have derived its sensibility and
form from this spiritual body, whose existence
has Just been established ; and think il will be
sufficient for this, 10 prove to you; lst, that o!
itself the material body is insensible; I'd, that of
tselfit has no form properly lis own.
LIST The material body is of Itself insensi5le
Chemists divide matter into inorganic and organ
ic. 1t is evident at once that inorganic mater
is insensbe; with respect to organic mater,
II. Dumas has lately shown, in his lectures on
chemistry, that of elementary bodies there are
not more than ten or twelve at most from which
general physiology borrows materials and that
Of these ten or twelve bodies there are only four
viz: oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and azote, which
constitute nearly the whole Of the composition
of living beings. The material body of man is,
then Of itself, insensible, since il is only compo-
sed Of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, an1 aZOtp--
elementary bodies evidently insensibla. Nthen,
it appears sensible, it is because each of the in
Vulnerable parts which compose it is the envel-
ope of the same corresponding part of the spirit
ual body the only body which can be gifted with
sensibiliiy.
ID The material badly has not Of Itself any
form ,chich IS property us oun. This results
from the fact that matter has not Of Itself, any
particular form. This proposition may seem to
YOU paradoXcal, for matter always offers itself
to our eyes under form which seems properly
It's own bat observe, that have said, Of lSeD
Life never ceasing to exist for moment in all
creation, and this life impressinga form upon all
bodies according to the present state Of their sub
stances, mattf presents itself, and should always
present Itself to us, clothed with form which
seems properly lis own; consequently, to have
an idea Of what matter can be Of itse1, we must
rccoliect what mathematicians have done when
they have treated of the motion OF bodies they
have laid it down, as q principle, that a body
which has received an impulse must always pro-
coed in straight line, and never step. This
proposition is, like ours, in manifest opposition
to facts: and yet nobody has ever disputed it.,
because mathematcians would have replied -
Abstract for moment the resistance of the air,
and of the friction which results from it, and
you will see that our proposition is not to be dis
puted. Wen will say to you, in like manner ::
Abstract life for a moment, and you will ac-
knowledge that matter cannot of itself have any
particular form. The four elementary bodies,
Of which our material body is composed, would
not have been combined together, so as to pre-
sent human form, if they did no. cover spr
ituaI body which has itself this form"