Physical Theory of Another Life

A speculative exploration of the possible paths of knowledge regarding human future life and duties, by a popular Victorian philosopher.

Isaac Taylor (Author)

9781108073097, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 May 2011

336 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm, 0.43 kg

The philosopher and literary author Isaac Taylor (1787–1865) published this book anonymously in 1836. The work is a development of two earlier works: Saturday Evening (1832) and Natural History of Enthusiasm (1829), all three attempts to provide a philosophy to deal with the major problems and spiritual questions of the day. The popularity of Physical Theory led to Taylor relinquishing his previous anonymity. The work is a religious and philosophically speculative exploration of the possible paths of knowledge to information regarding the future existence of human beings. Taylor believed that knowledge of the human physical constitution could be used to conjecture information about the modes of human eternal life and eternity's scheme of moral duties. The work was very popular among contemporaries and offers today an important insight into Victorian intellectual life. It is a rich source for historians of nineteenth-century religious philosophy.

Preface
1. Preliminary cautions, and statement of the subject
2. The conditions of corporeity, whether animal or spiritual
3. The probable prerogatives of spiritual corporeity, as compared with animal organization – the first of those prerogatives
4. The second and third supposed prerogatives of the spiritual economy
5. The fourth of these advantages
6. The fifth and sixth hypothetical prerogatives of the spiritual body
7. The seventh probable advantage of the future life
8. The eighth prerogative, according to our hypothesis, of spiritual corporeity
9. The ninth point of advantage belonging to the contrast between animal organization and spiritual life
10. The balanced probability of happiness or misery, involved in the physical theory of another life
11. Probable point of contrast between the animal and spiritual body, in the principle of their construction, respectively
12. The transition of human nature from animal to spiritual corporeity, a natural, not a miraculous event
13. The survivance of individual character, and of the moral consciousness
14. Correspondence between the present and the future employment of the active principles of human nature
15. Introductory to some conjectures concerning the correlative construction, and reciprocal destines of the material and spiritual universe
16. The first conjecture concerning the material universe, viewed as the theatre of an intellectual system
17. The second conjecture
18. The third conjecture
19. The general ground of conjectural reasoning concerning what is unseen or future
20. On the advancement of pneumatology.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]