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Show Page 177 supposes there is no absurdity in matter acting upon that which is unextended." This Orson finds to be a strong argument in favor of the "materiality" of mind.26 After disposing of conventional materialism and the school of skepticism, which places excessive emphasis on ideas, Orson closes his essay answering a number of Taylder's rather typical misconceptions about Mormon doctrine. He has successfully wriggled out of the "materialist" coven to which Taylder assigned him, but has left a few gaping holes behind him. For example, he imputes to Priestley the "absurd" assumption that mind proceeds from the operations of the brain - "absurd" because it does not provide for the "separate existence of the mind or spirit" - as though the existence of spirit were somehow self-evident. Here he plainly answers assertion with assertion; but elsewhere he displays not only cogent and original logic, but a remarkable level of acquaintance with the philosophical disputes of his day. The writings of Priestley and Thomas Brown, Bishops Berkeley and Butler, Erasmus Darwin and Isaac Taylor - not to mention Dionysius Lardner, the Irish lecturer and popularizer of science - all are familiar ground to him. Absurdities of Immaterialism was completed July 31, 1849. This extensive philosophical effort, indicative of much reading and concentration, was not produced in a vacuum, however. Orson had continued to preach in the streets of Liverpool to chattering and scandalized audiences - once when heckled by a particularly strident bully, he merely raised his voice and matched the man's volume. When he had shouted the heckler into 27 exhaustion, he continued his speech while the crowd laughed.. At the same time, the administrative demands on the European Mission president were staggering. Letters from Young arrived requesting all kinds of machinery, beseeching him to recruit as emigrants as many artisans, mechanics and /textile workers as 'possible. The constant flood of emigrants, shiploads |