Charles E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe compiled from her letters and journals by her son Charles Edward Stowe, Chapter 1: childhood, 1811-1824., page 15

Home Collections/Texts Perseus Catalog Research Grants Open Source About Help

Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:

This text is part of:

19th-Century American

View text chunked by:

chapter : page
page

[15] is still distinctly legible. As the first literary production of one who afterwards attained such distinction as a writer, it is deemed of sufficient value and interest to be embodied in this biography exactly as it was written and read sixty-five years ago. The subject was certainly a grave one to be handled by a child of twelve.

Can the immortality of the soul be proved by the light of nature?

It has justly been concluded by the philosophers of every age that “The proper study of mankind is man,” and his nature and composition, both physical and mental, have been subjects of the most critical examination. In the course of these researches many have been at a loss to account for the change which takes place in the body at the time of death. By some it has been attributed to the flight of its tenant, and by others to its final annihilation.

The questions, “What becomes of the soul at the time of death?” and, if it be not annihilated, “What is its destiny after death?” are those which, from the interest that we all feel in them, will probably engross universal attention.

In pursuing these inquiries it will be necessary to divest ourselves of all that knowledge which we have obtained from the light which revelation has shed over them, and place ourselves in the same position as the philosophers of past ages when considering the same subject.

The first argument which has been advanced to prove the immortality of the soul is drawn from the

Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1889.

Tufts University provided support for entering this text.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar:

Charles E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe compiled from her letters and journals by her son Charles Edward Stowe

This text is part of:

View text chunked by:

Table of Contents:

Can the immortality of the soul be proved by the light of nature?