This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 edition. Excerpt: ...of martyrs, or many worthy people who have been reduced to ashes by great public conflagrations, such as the burning of Eome under Nero? No sane persons believe that we shall rise with the old framework of bone and the particles of flesh which have been dispersed by death through a thousand new forms of organic life. Those who plead for the survival of our individual selves after the shock of death, simply mean that life, instead of being the mere product of force and matter in certain combinations, is the subtle thing which builds itself a mortal tabernacle by the aid of force and matter, and can survive again and again the shock which destroys that special envelope called the human body, using new elements for self-expression adapted to the altered conditions of another life. This is the utmost that the advocates of Kesurrection must now be permitted to claim, and our German physiologists have denied them even that. "But even if the old literal Eesurrection doctrine be held, Cremation cannot affect it. For any power capable of recalling and arranging the atoms of a body consumed in one hundred years by earth, air, and water, could equally collect and re-arrange the atoms which, in one brief half-hour, have been dispersed by fire. "Fourthly, that the exhalations from Cremation are unwholesome. Hindoo Cremation and the old heathen funeral pyres doubtless were; but not the modern crematory, as I have described it. "Fifthly, it is argued that future palaeontologists would have no skulls to examine, if we burned all our bones. The objection is farcical. But in fact, however prevalent Cremation may become, some people are certain to be buried still in all ages and countries; and secondly, in all civilized museums skulls and...