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Monday, September 08, 2003

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Were boynton still living in one of the many ancestral villages of her genealogy, she would like to befriend the Friends of Coleridge and attend a literary evening in Nether Stowey (at 8pm in the Church Centre Stable Loft) or a study weekend in Kilve. The Friends' Coleridge Bulletin has many interesting on-line articles, including one of particular interest to boynton as she rambled aimlessly seeking proof of the existence or otherwise of God. As you do.

Coleridge finds it inconceivable that the "accidental play of atoms" could create such "a polished and accurate Watch or Timepiece" as the universe. He claims that the absurdity of this notion caused the hylozoic atheists to bring in "plastic natures" to account for the organisation of atomic structure...

"But the unhappy man who has imbibed the detested System of Atheism in his Childhood or Youth, him pity him avoid. All the predisposing causes of Virtue are taken from him ___ nothing remains that can enlargen or soften. The intellectual Pleasures which substitute a efined Luxury of Feelings for the grossness of bodily Appetite, the emotions of heaven-directed Gratitude, the cheerings of death-deriding Hope, are all vanished."
Coleridge and Atheism in the 1790s
Michael Murphy

If further proof is required, boynton will summon some Frost at Midnight before heading out into this glorious spring sunshine.

"When talking of his radical years, Coleridge claims: "My head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul and John"

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