Modern Light on Immortality: Being an Original Excursion into Historical Research and Scientific Discovery Pointing to a New Solution of the Problem by Frank, Henry

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' »> 7

ARTES SCIENTIA VERITAS

MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

BEING AN ORIGINAL EXCURSION INTO HISTORICAL RE- SEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY POINTING TO A NEW SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM

HENRY FRANK

AUTHOK or "THE TRIDUPH OF TBUTH," "TU HA8TBKT OF

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1909

DR. PAUL CARUS

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PREFACE

The author of this work does not profess to have advanced an argument which finally proves the im- mortality of the human souL Neither does he pre- tend to have presented an argument in disproof of or prejudicial to such a demonstration. He set out with the one and only determination of finding what in Nature and human experience, in philoso- phy and the natural sciences might enable him to reach a rational conclusion concerning so profound and world-consequential a problem. He had his mind thoroughly prepared to accept with resigna- tion whatever deduction from the facts he might discover would be logically necessary. He had whoUy freed himself from whatever traditional and superstitious disposition toward the subject he might have inherited from ancestral and hereditary influences. He was led into an original investiga- tion of the subject by the following circumstances.

He had been for many years a minister of the Grospel in two orthodox Christian denominations, but became from time to time impressed by the de- liverances of modem science and their exposition of inconsistencies in the orthodox interpretation of the- ology. At length he threw off the impediment of both theological and ecclesiastical restrictions, and freeing himself from all denominational relation- ship, undertook to found his own congregation in the Nation's metropolis and present whatever con-

PEEFAOE

scientious interpretation of the truth his studies and investigation might force upon him.

He soon discovered that even so free and un- trammelled a congregation as he had assembled was willing to give him the utmost liberty of thought on all other subjects save that which related to the nature and future of the human souL This seemed to them, as a rule, to be extremely sacred, or at least one tiiat so profoundly concerned them they wished chiefly to be set right, if possible, regarding it ev^i to the total neglect of all other religious concep- tions. By letter and personal word a continual in- fluence was brought to bear on the author till he was forced to express his conclusions. This h^ hes- itated to do, for, having cast aside all the estab- lished orthodox theories of religion, he felt satis- fied that he would be forced by science and rational philosophy also to cast aside this doctrine, which to them seemed to be so vastly important. He told them, however, that he would be willing to inform them of his conclusions if they would with him travel over the entire historical and scientific ground relating to the doctrine, and with an \m- prejudiced mind accept as satisfactory whatever they actually discovered as the truth, — if such a discovery were possible.

With that promise granted, the author began a careful and conscientious investigation, and from time to time offered the results of his work to them. The investigation he then made, which was several years ago, so deeply interested him and so whetted his appetite for additional knowledge that he con-

PREFACE

eluded to make it a specialty and some time aggre- gate and organize the result in book form. This volume is the consequence.

The reader will pursue about the same path as did the author in traversing the problematical theme. The first half of the book carries with it a negatire, or at least an indifferent result. After making a careful study of all the historical argu- ments in favor of the soul's existence and its fu- ture life, the author could see nothing of value in fortifying one's affirmative conception. Indeed, it seemed to him that in the light of the modem knowledge of Nature the old arguments were aU puerile, weak and ineffective. He does not, there- fore, hesitate to say so, and should the reader close the work at the end of the first book, he would wander away with a feeling that perhaps all the bulwarks of the old faith and hope had been smitten*

To the author the argument that has so long ap- pealed to many with an affirmative conviction con- cerning the problem, namely, that because the con- ception of immortality has prevailed in the mind of man from the very beginning of history there must be something divine and incontrovertible in its intimations, seemed especially unsatisfactory and inconclusive.

He devoted, therefore, many pages to a detailed investigation of the source of this apparent con- sciousness of survival after death, studying its ram- ifying stream of influence from the dawn of time to the most intellectual periods of human history.

PREFACE

He sought information among the relics of the stone age and the remains of prehistoric man, as far as attainable, some of which are most suggestive on this theme, and compared their intimations with the sources from which science now instructs us they must have been acquired.

The records of all the nations of antiquity were called to witness as far as they are accessible in standard historical works* Egypt, India, Abys- sinia, Babylonia, Caldsea, Judsea, Greece, Home, the mystic Druids, Scandinavia, are all called to the witness stand to give evidence of their conceptions and the source from which they were derived.

The result of this investigation to the author seems to negative the conclusion so often deduced, namely, that because the belief in survival was so universal, therefore it demonstrated its own verity.

The investigation then turned to the Bible, the idea of immortality which the Jews entertained previous to the advent of Jesus, and its bearing on their civilization. From that theme the path led to Jesus and the Christian church, to learn whether Jesus himself taught with absoluteness and cer- tainly any specific doctrine concerning the after life. But Jesus suggests Paul, the practical founder of the Christian church; and Paul sug- gests Peter, his potent and everobnozious rival. And at that juncture the author was led into a long and devious by-path of history wherein he appar- ently discovered that Paul himself is responsible for the historical and standard conception of im- mortality, which has ever since attached to the-

PREFACE

olpgical indoctrination^ and that Peter merely de- sired to teach the pre-Jesuan doctrine as it was tin- derstood in the Sanhedrinu

That doctrine related to the conditions of this earth only, and to that very Kingdom of God, to be established and consecrated here as the Paradise of heaven, which Jesus himself emphatically taught.

Paul had apparently dipped deeply into the the- osophical mysteries of the Orient, especially as in- oorporated in the Eleusinian rites, and, according to a carefully worked out investigation of his la- bors, seems to have foisted the teleology of that fas- cinating but mystical drama upon the practical in- culcations of the Christian religion.

The fact that this was seemingly the source from which the doctrine of the after life was incorpo- rated into Christianity compels a careful study of the derivation of the tradition of the resurrection of Jesus and the force of Paul's argument con- cerning it as the foundation of the hope of immor- tality for the human race. With this investiga- tion we close the first part of the book, with the negative conclusion that during the first three cen- turies of the Christian church no serious or clear conception of the after life was entertained, nor was it inculcated as a necessary doctrine of the creed.

All these studies led to negative results concern- ing the historical absoluteness and philosophical certainty of the life of mankind beyond the grave.

We entered on the second half of the work with no preconceived apprehension that what would be

PREFACE

disoovered would be convincing on either eide of the subject It waa the author's object to learn if he possibly could whether there was anything at all in the natural sciences that would lead to some accurate knowledge concerning the soul of man and the possible after life. He indeed anticipated that all the results would be negative ; for he knew that almost all the physicists had so decided. But one thing he had resolved upon : — that was, that he would abide strictly, without prevarication or self-deception, with the facts and laws in Nature which the physical sciences had discovered. There- fore his appeal was more earnestly to the strictly scientific records than to those of philosophy, psy- chology or metaphysics. Indeed he was aware that if any conclusion could be reached which would at all demand the respect of scientific men it must be derived from a source wholly divorced from any metaphysics or philosophy that was tinged with re- ligious prejudice. Consequently he avoided all the confusing trails and by-paths of speculative conjec- ture and kept close to the well-beaten track of ex- perimental science. More especially did he call for the helpful knowledge which the great German bi- ologists, histologists and chemists, such as Haeckel and his contemporaries, have furnished. The pioneer in the scientific study of vital phenomena. Dr. Beale of London, and a score of recent explor- ers in chemical, electrical and biological realms, euch as Huxley, Darwin, Crookes, Lord Kelvin, and others, have been the authorities relied upon.

The author was determined that he would not

PREFACE

halt at any, even the most emphatieallj material- istic fact or deduction, these investigators might present, but accept every declaration of the truth, as such, no matter i^hat bearing it would have upon the doctrine under investigation.

He confesses his own surprise at the result. What the opinion of others may be, of course he cannot tell, but of this he is assured that he feels his deductions are strictly logical and grounded in ac- curate and indisputable scientific data. He be- lieves that the result as well as the method of this study is wholly original, as he knows of no author who has traversed the entire region he felt called upon to cover in order to assure himself that com- plete justice had been done to every phase of the problem.

He leaves the conclusions, which the force of logic itself, devoid of any traditional bias, seemed to compel, to the patient consideration of those who may be interested. He hopes he has avoided any indication of dogmatism; for he has no dogma which he desires to propagate. His only wish is to seek and to find the trutL Has he found it ?

H. F.

CONTENTS

PART I

The Hktokt and ths Pkoblbm of the Fu- TUKs Life 16

I. Speculativb Theobie8 ... 17 II. The ANTiQumr of the Concep- tion OF Imho&talitt S7 nL Evolution of the Conception

OF Immoetautt .... 86 IV. The Natueaustic Oeioin of THE Conception of Immoe- tautt 56

y. Pedotive Soueces of Belief

IN Aftee Life .... 66 VI. Deuidic Souece of Belief in

Aftee Life 76

Vn. A88TEIAN AND EoTPTlAN

S0VECE8 OF Belief ... 86 Vlll. Absteio-Babtlonian Soueces

OF Belief 99

IX. Evolution of Geecian Belief

IN Aftee Life .... 104 X. Natuealistic Oeioin of the

Jewish Conception . . 129

XI. Oeioin of Cheistian Concep- tion OF Aftee Life . .146

CONTENTS

CHAPTEB PAGE

Xn. Okioik of Christian Concep- tion OF After Life (con- tinued) 158

Xin. Chust's Conception of Im-

MOBTAi. Life 174

XIV. Paul and the Docteine of

Eteenal Life .... 186 XV. Patti. and the Docteine of

the Resuekection . 199

XYI. Eaelt Christian Conception

of Eternal Life . .210

PART II

Recent Science and the Probijcm of the Future Life 821

XVIL The Physical Basis of the

Soul 223

XYIII. Grecian Philosophies on the

Nature of the Universe . 229 XIX. Speculative Scientific Views 288 XX. Conflicting Views of the Na- ture OF Matter .... 248 XXL Recent Scientific Analysis

OF Matter 247

XXII. Sensation and Intelligence

IN Matter 266

XXin. The Search for the Seat of

the Soul 269

XXIV. The Intelligence of Lower

Animals 279

CONTENTS

PAOB

XXy. MoRAis Chaaactek Among

Lowes Animals .... 286 XXVI. The Nature and Generation

OF Instinct S96

XXVIL Analysis of the Human Soul S04 XXVIII. The Fundamental Thesis of

THE New Pstcholoot . SIS

PSTGHOOENT OE SoUL GeNEEA*

HON S24i

The Peoblem of the Obioin of

Oboanic Life SS8

XXXI. Line Between Livino and not

LiviNO S44

XXXn. Cbeation and Potency of Pee-

soNAL Soul S56

XXXni. Physical Obioin of Self-Con- sciousness 364

Pboofs of the Soul's Exist- ence AND SUPBEMACY . . S74

Identity of Substance, En-

EB6Y AND SfIBIT .... S84

XXXVI. Scientific Intimations of the

Soul's Subvival .... S97 XXXVII. Physical and Psychical Im-

MOBTALTTY 410

XXXVni. Recapitulation and Conclu- sion OF THE AbGUMENT . . 4S1

XXXIX. Concluding Remabks . . . 461

Index .••.••• 455

PART I

""^^ HISTORY AND THE PROBLEM OF

THE FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER I SPECULATIVE THEORIES

Prom time immemorial men have pondered: Hath man a 8oul? If so, of what is it made, whence hath it come, and whither shall it got Shall it live after the body, or shall it dissolve, at last, like this ^^ muddy vesture of decay," and be no more t The answer has always been the echo of man's wish.

Has his life here been one of peace and pleasure, he has viewed elsewhere his soul's fruition and eternal joy. Has he been doomed to penury and want; has haggard woe trodden deep furrows in his waxen face; then looks he askance at other worlds where fate sits grim and gruesome and of- fers naught but tears and sweat of blood and rack- ing pain. He who sought in Nature's countenance to read the riddle, has departed silent and unsated. Behind the solemn clouds the sinking sun of life had set forever. 'No returning dawn heralded his restoration. He had gone. Within the curtain of eternal night he lay forever folded.

Therefore men ignorantly sought wisdom from those who dreamed and prophesied, who found their God in secret caves, and learned from Him the mys- tery of being. Prelate and poet, student and phi- Josopher alike worshipped at the shrine of igno- rance, beseeching Truth for knowledge and conso- lation.

But we, who to-day traverse the course which

18 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

mankind have for ages pursued^ behold them clam- bering the nigged mountain sides^ whose jutting Tocks pierce and lacerate their weary bodies, ever wistfully scanning the heights for Truth's reveal- ments, and fair Hope's return. For ages men have clespaired to look beyond the grave. At last de- spair grew into indifference^ and men cared not whether life continued or no.

Speculation then assumed a pessimistic turn, and men began to ask: Why should we live? Is not this life sufficiently surfeited with woe to pull the veil of delusion from our eyes? Who is happy? No one. Who does not sense "the respect that makes calamity of so long life ? " Aye I each of us.

^^ For who would bear the whips and scorns of time. The oppressor's wrongs the proud man's contumely. To grunt and sweat imder a weary life/'

forever and forever ?

Thus have men reasoned themselves against even the hope of immortality. To escape the con- fusion and perplexity of the problem, they argue why is not this hope and dream of an after life but a misplaced anticipation of that paradise which shall some time prevail here upon this planet ?

Some have dreamed of a social and perennial paradise, as man's future earthly estate, and disap- pointed in its realization, they have cast the vision of its fulfilment beyond the skies. There the rid- dle will be read; there will they enjoy such de- lights as the heart conceives but this earth cannot engender. Others argued that this has been a fool-

SPECULATIVE THEORIES 19

iah and weak suirender. What men have for all time been dreaming of , shall yet be attained on this planet, and that which in despair thej cast be- yond the skies, shall some time become the visitant and mler of this sphere.

They insist, the immortality to be sought after is the immortality of individual character and the triumph of collective justica Individual immor- tality, they say, is the outgrowth of egotism and aeHshness. The highest sacrifice is the resigna- tion to oblivion after a career of goodness and in- tegrity has been achieved.

But why, still others insist, must the hope of an earthly paradise, peopled with children of light and love, truthfulness and peace, neutralize the hope of an eternal paradise in which each of us may par- ticipate? If as a race we shall yet achieve such glorious ends, then why not encourage the hope that each of us individual factors, who in our time has " pushed on the car of progress,^' shall yet wear the crown in other worlds which they here shall some time wear whom we have helped to win. If the race as a whole in the future shall inherit the fruits of our efforts, why should not we, who have fought and died, live again to win and rejoice ?

They admit it is man's egotism that prompts this desire for eternal life. But they contend that man's egotism and self-consciousness are the prod- uct of Nature's evolutionary process. Man is more egotistic than the animal because he is more self- conscious; and were he not thus self-conscious he would not be man, but still an animal. The bird

20 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

is more self-conscious than the bough on which it poises, and is, therefore, the bird and not the bough. Self-consciousness is the basis of egotism, and egot- ism is the substratum of indiyiduality. Having found one's self, it is but natural to desire to pos- sess one^s self forever. The bird is happier than the bough, and therefore loves itself better than the bough. Man loves himself better than aught else in the world, and he would not be man if he did not.

The cultivation of such egotism is not vicious. It becomes so only when it is transformed into im- pure gratification and brutal selfishness. The de- sire to perpetuate that individuality which we have learned to love because of its aspirations, aims and capabilities, is no more to be condemned than the desire to live forever in the presence of beauty, or forever to be transported with the chords of melody. Nature has achieved in man her highest degree of intelligence, consciousness and capacity. Why should not he, in whom Nature has registered this highest achievement, desire to follow the unfold- ment within his own consciousness, throughout the whole compass of her possibilities ?

Thus some are led to think that the desire to live forever is but the product of self-consciousness. The two are complementary. They cannot exist apart The very fact that the self-consciousness exists proves the desire. The fact that the desire exists prophesies the continued self-consciousness.

Again, some have sought the solution of the problem in the assumption that the soul, as a living entity, only temporarily inhabits this frame, but

SPECULATIVE THEORIES 21

Uvea apart from it, and so soon as this tenement dissolves immediately enters and inhabits another prepared for it. In this view the soul is a oosmio traveller, flying from pole to pole and realm to realm, seeking everywhere its fitting abode, and ill- oontented until its affinity is found. Nor shall it ever be found in the transitory realms of time. Its final peace but comes when it ceases to body forth in matter and sinks into the unindividuated source from which it originally came.

'^ Our birth is but a sleeping and a forgetting:

The soul that riseth with us, our life's star. Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And eometh from afar :

Not in entire f orgetfulness.

Nor in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home."

Again, it is contended by a pseudo-scientific school of thought that the primitive notion of sur- vival which has so thoroughly permeated religious thought in every passing phase of civilization is one of the strongest proofs of the actual post-exist- ence of the souL Discerning that among the tra- ditions of the most savage tribes there are evident indications of belief that the soul will travel to other spheres, or at least in some form hover round the earth as an invisible phantom ; they deduce the con- dnsion that mankind not having since been able to free themselves from this primitive conception, it must have an abiding place in the truth of the uni-

22 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

verse. Theref ore, survival being a race-conception, must be a fact in Nature. While such a deduction may not be acceptable from a scientific point of view, it is nevertheless interesting to note that how- ever civilized and cultured men become, they seem to be imable to divest themselves of the notion ; that it is manifestly the most persistent of all the prim- itive conceptions of the race.

We shall consequently find it necessaiy to study with much care the origin and nature of this per- sistent conception to learn whether it holds any logical claim on the deductions of science. Be- cause a thought has persisted in human conscious- ness from time immemorial is not sufficient proof that it is therefore essential and true; errors per- sist as well through ages as do truths; for man is so subject to subjective and sub-conscious influences that he must be on his guard lest he think that to be objectively a fact in Nature which is but a resid- ual trace of antecedent racial experience.

It is significant that the observation by students of the notion of survival in the human mind has in different periods led to diametrically opposite con- clusions, resulting from the resident bias with which they approach the subject Or perhaps it would be more correct to state that although approached from opposite points of view, the diametrically dif- ferent deductions drawn have led them, curiously enough, to use such deductions as corroborative evi- dences of the soul's survival after death.

Before the careful methods of recent science de-

SPECULATIVE THEORIES 29

veloped it was oommoiily insisted upon by theologi- ans that there could be found no trace of the con- ception of survival among the savage tribes; that the notion of immortality was wholly foreign to them and that it entered the human mind only through the voice of revelation*

Dr. Watson^ the eminent evangelical author of '^ Watson's Institutes/' intimates this when he says : '^ There is in nature no indubitable declaration of man's immortality, nor any facts and principles so obvious as to enable us confidently to infer it. All observation lies directly against the doctrine o£ the immortality of man ;" etc Hence, because nat- ural man could as he conceived never discern in Nature any intimations of immortality, the idea oould not have occurred to him save as ^^ furnished by revelations contained in the Holy Scriptures."

In fact, it was a principle long sanctified by sa- cred usage that every notion relating to the soiQ, its- origin and future possibilities, must need have en- tered the human mind only through the channel of revelation, and that had not God deigned to- have vouchsafed such information and hope to hu- mankind, man would have lived hopelessly on this planet^ so far as any possibility of future existencer may have been concerned.

The argument which he advances and which pre- vailed through many Christian centuries is that be- cause man could not of himself and through the in- timation of Nature conceive the possibility of after- death existence, the notion having seized the hu-

24 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

man mind since the advent of Christy it must nec- essarily be true because it was a deliverance of revelation*

In shorty the fact that since the dawn of Chris- tianity all true believers have placed their hope of immortality in the sacrifice of Jesus, and that no such hope had ever before entered the human heart, proves beyond a peradventure that the hope is not groundless and that immortality is an in- disputable truth in Nature.

The wider observations of modem scientists, the marvellous revelations of recent archaeological re- search, of course, all emphatically disprove the as- sertions so confidently made for centuries by the theologians. We now learn that not only is it not true that the conception of immortality came first to humankind through the declarations of Holy Scripture, but that however far back toward the dawn of human history we may traverse we cannot find the period in which some intimation of im- mortality was not already resident in the human mind. We shall shortly review this topic more at length.

But it is this later discovery which has been em- ployed by students who enjoy a bias toward the belief in the doctrine of immortality on which to rest their argument in favor of the doctrine. As the old theologians concluded the doctrine must be true because it came not by natural observation to the human mind but only through divine interven- tion and revelation; the newer theologians and pseudo-scientists insist on the contrary, that because

SPECULATIVE THEORIES 26

of the fact that the notion of survival has always existed however germinally in the human breast, therefore it is an indubitable fact in Nature and consequently indisputable.

Accordingly we read in one of the very latest and apparently most scientific studies of " The Future Life/' the title of a very able work by an author who employs the pseudonym of '^ Louis Elbe/' that ^' Side by side with scientific observation, which carries with it the conviction belonging to ascer- tained facts, the traditions handed down to us by antiquity retain a species of moral authority which is also of high importance, and in studying the still vexed problem of a future life we can in no wise afford to neglect them. If we admit that it is pos- sible to disentangle from them a fairly definite con- ception such as might be considered, in principle at least, to epitomize the common faith of widely divergent races, and thus to formulate the perma- nent belief of mankind, we are bound to acknowl- edge that a general occurrence of this kind tends to endow the teachings of frimitive philosophy with the avihority of an original revelation, as if prime- val man had been favored with an insight into the problem of the invisible world which we cannot now regain,'^

He admits that such ^' primitive authority " can- not call for rational credence until it is supple- mented by the confirmatory evidence of more exact scientific investigation, and undertakes to show in an extensive and labored work that such confirma- tion is now at hand.

26 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

We shall find it, therefore, encumbent on our- selves to look more carefully into these primitive notions and to discern whether the fact of their convergence and apparently common basis is reallj of an authoritative and compulsory nature, or whether they did not all arise from the same com- mon experience of the race and consequently led to similar if not identical conclusions.

We shall see that there is a vast field of ancient manners and customs which seem to have a com- mon origin and appertain to common religious and social usages, yet which sprung up, almost simul- taneously, among widely divergent and unrelated people. We shall therefore be forced to study the possibility of the doctrine we are considering hav- ing sprung up in a similar manner and from simi- lar sources among many peoples so widely sep- arated.

Approaching this study without any bias favor^ able or unfavorable to the common hope of the race in immortality, it shall be our only endeavor in this work to investigate its possibility and what corroboration or disproof of the same science may afford us.

CHAPTER n

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE CONCEPTION

OF nOIOETAUTT

As I have intimated^ modem scholarship is not yet wholly freed from the traditional theory that the doctrine of immortality was a special revela- tion from God, and that not until the time of Jesns was it recognized as a genuine doctrine of religion.

One reads with surprise, for instance, in a recent and most excellent work, '^ The Evolution of Im- inortaUty,;' written with an apparently sincere de- aire of being wholly consonant with the discoveries of modem science, this curious assertion :

'^Two things are usually taken for granted in all discussions concerning future life. One is the essen- tial immortality of the soul. The other is that the same kind and quality of soul is common to all men. Are these assumptions defensible? . . . The fact is that only in Christendom and Islam is the essential immortality of the individual spirit assumed. To ike amiention that belief in eternal life has been held al* way$ and everywhere, and by all men, the only reply ii that the facts are not so." ^

Undoubtedly the primitive conception of the soul was indefinite and confused. The aborigine knew but little of a distinctive personal soul, save as it resembled a shadowy reflection of the once living individual. Seeing again in his dreams him whom once he had seen in the living body amid the activ-

1 ^ Bvolution of LnmortaUty/' by S. D. McOmneU, Chap. IV, pp. 37, 40.

28 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

ities of earthy he assumed that the departed still lived; hence with food and raiment he supplied him on the edges of the grave, imagining that he returned in the night and partook of the worship- per^s generosity.

It is not, of course, true that the primitive con- ception of the soul was distinct and individual- ized. It was shadowy, vague, ephemeral, indis- tinct. The notion grew with advancing civilization till in the times of the Christian religion it devel- oped into vividness and clarity enhaloed with a spiritual illumination and sweetened with a divine flavor that made it especially endearing.

But that it was not in some manner entertained by the human mind, in all ages and at all times, is a careless and mistaken statement.

Strange to say, the notion became far more de- fined and positive in certain of the so-called pagan nations who surrounded the ancient Jews than it did among them. Notwithstanding their claim to direct and particular revelation from the eternal God, such less developed nations as the Gauls and Caldseans, and even the Chinese, not to speak of the highly civilized Egyptians, entertained in the time of Moses, and even ages antedating his advent, very specific and clearly defined conceptions both of the soul and its immortality.

In order that we may understand the treatment which modem science affords this disputed theme we should fully apprehend the fact that in some manner all ages and all civilizations have had some notion of inmiortality, more or less definite; and

ANTIQUITY OF THE CONCEPTION 29

that the only miflsion of present daj science con- cerning it is to penetrate the fog which so long sur^ rounded it and expose the data of modem discovery that either substantiate or disprove it.

What, then, are some of the notions entertained by some of the ancient pagan peoples! To begin -with, they are by no means identical, though it may be stated as a positive fact that an original germ or nucleus of belief obtained among all peo- ple which was identical in its nature.

For instance, the most primitive savage entertains the idea that the shadowy remains of his neighbor lingered about the grave and after awhile com- pletely departed.

Says Tylor in ^' Anthropology," p. 844: " The Zulu will say that at death a man's shadow departs from his body and becomes an anoestcal ghost . • • The Malays do not like to disturb a sleeper lest they hurt him by waking his body while his soul is out. • • • The Nicarauguans when questioned by the Spaniards said that when a man or woman died there comes out of their mouth something that resembles a penon and does not die, but the body remains here. . . • Some Greenlanders reckoned man as having two souls, his shadow and his breath; and the Fijians said that the 'dark spirit' or shadow goes down to the world below, but the ' light spirit ' or reflection seen in the water stays near where he dies."

Here it is seen we have in germinal form the crude notions of hell and heaven, and even a faint hint of the absorption of the soul in the supreme

80 MODERN LIGHT ON DIMOETALITT

essence so exquisitely developed in the later Hindu religions.

The idea advanced by Dr. McConneU, in his '' Evolution of Immortality/' that the conception of personal immortality is not universal in all be- liefsy however aboriginal, and was really only in* vented by Christendom and Islam, seems inconsist- ent with the facts. For instance, even the appar- ently modem religious institution of invoking the saints for personal relief, as so conspicuously culti- vated in the Boman Catholic faith, is found to exist in an emphatic manner as an aboriginal institution among the negroid races.

''The North American Indian, who prays to the spirits of his forefathers to give him good weather or luck in hunting, if he happens to fall into the fire will believe he has neglected to make some offering to the spirits, and they have therefore punished him. • • • In Guinea the Kegroes who regularly bring food and drink to the images of their dead relatives look to them for help in the trials of life, and in times of peril or distress crowds of men and women may be seen on the hill tops or the skirts of forests calling in most piteous and touching tones on the spirits of ti^eir ancestors.'* *

Here we have a clear anticipation of ancestor wor- ship, as afterwards forcibly developed among the Chinese and Hindus, the adoration and interces- sion of the saints, and the continued existence of the individual soul.

We shall see how this primitive conception un-

1 Tyier*8 " Anthropology/* p. 352.

ANTIQUITY OF THE CONCEPTION 81

folded hy exarniTiing, for example, the leligioiia customs of the Chinese. Confnciiis was rather an ethical than a religions teacher; if we mean by religion the pnrsnit of snch aspirations and possi- bilities as lie chiefly beyond the grave. For he ntterly ignored aU theories and teachings concern- ing Deity and the after life. Nevertheless^ he in- . eulcated the adoration of the ancestors of the peo- ple and made this institution the burden of the na- tional religion.

It would be f utilCy naturally, to search the writ- ings of Confucius for a clear and decisive knowl- edge, as imparted to him by the writings of his an- cestors, of the regions of the soul after death. But this much is certain: Confucius was an ardent ad- vocate of ancestor worship; he admitted that all the knowledge of the affairs of this world and a possible world hereafter which he could credit he had received from the writings of antiquity.

In the most ancient writings known to the Chi- nese, the Canon of Shun, which were edited by Con- fucius, we find distinct reference to an injunc- tion to worship the " Six objects of Honor,** among which are the ** spirits of the sages and worthies of ancient times." ^

While there may be some dispute as to the clarity of the injunction, as to whether this reference to spirits implied a general belief in the spirits of all the departed as still existing, it is nevertheless evi- dent that a vague and germinal notion of the sur-

1 "* The Religions of China," Legge^ p. 26.

82 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITT

vival of the dead inhered in the worshipful usages of the most ancient Chinese.

We are assured by the most cautious students of the Chinese religions that in the most ^cient forms and rituals of the faith there were employed such terms as clearly denoted that when a man died his body went back to the dust and his soul soared away into the heavens. Eeference is even made to the occupations of some who were still in glory and attended by the spirits of those who once at" tended them on earth. ^

Although such incidental and sporadic refer- ences to the other world, because of their indecis- iveness and indefiniteness, were disappointing to the Chinese, and caused them finally to cast off the traditions of Confucianism and substitute for them the more mystical and teleogical superstitions of Taoism and Hindu Buddhism, nevertheless they sufficiently prove that even in the most primitive minds of human civilization the notion of the sur- vival of the dead was in some measure inculcated*

By way of prejudicial comparison with the re- ligion of Christianity the indefiniteness and un- consoling vagueness of the Chinese teachings are descanted upon. We must not, however, overlook the fact that Taoism was really more ancient than Confucianism; that Lao Tse, its founder, was a very old man when Confucius began to teach, and that that religion is surcharged with all manner of spiritistic ritualism and soul distressing theology.

1 Legge, ** Rd. of China/' p. 267.

ANTIQUITY OF THE CONCEPTION 8S

Jn this religion yoa find antedating by many thou- sands of years all the ghoddng phases of medimn- istic superstition and bewildering witchcraft which in comparatively modem times so benighted the mind of Christendom. Spirits are everywhere. Nothing that the eye sees, the ear hears or the body feels but is the incarnation of some spirit These indeed are nature spirits; but no less is there the return of the disembodied spirit in some present- able form or in invisible adumbration to encour- age or affri^t the dismayed votary. *^ Spirits haunt houses and frequent thickets. Their sounds^ weird and eerie^ are heard in the darkness of the nighty when the wind is howling about the roof, or the rats and mice are holding revel under the floor, or behind the wainscot in the crevices of the wall. The dread of spirits is the nightmare of the China- man's life and to this dread Taoism panders." ^

How like an anticipation of the experiences of Qiristendom for many centuries this description sounds 1 Almost the same language might have been used by Lecky in his ^' History of Bational- ism," and indeed is used to portray the supersti- tions relating to spirits and witchcraft that pre* vailed in Emrope and America as late as the first quarter of the nineteenth century I

Step by step the evolution of the soul's condition b^ond the grave from the most primitive times can easily be traced. Primarily the soul was a shadow of the body, was so called, and so believed

84 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

to be. It stayed with the body after death, and was primarily supposed to be attached to it in the grave. Then the notion came that the shadow might wander away from the body only to return again to abide with it ; and that in such wanderings the soul was provided with food and raiment by the wandering shadow.

'^ Later, the mind of man rises to a conception less purely material, and the souls of the dead are imagined as being able to partially leave the tomb and congregate in a place of their own, where they pursue the occupations of the earthly life. Still later the idea arose that this new existence must be influenced by the deeds of the present life, for which it is either the reward or punishment. Two places are then distinguishable, Tartarus and Elysium, the one a place of torment for the souls of the transgressors, the other of happiness for the souls of the righteous."

But often this more simplified form of the after life is developed into a complex condition which seems to destroy either the unity or the individuali^ of the soul and to classify it into several distinct per^ sons. As in the ancient Chinese conception, the spirit was first again witnessed in what was called the spirit-tablet, a sort of fetich which commanded profound respect, or as afterwards in some mem- ber of the family who substituted the tablet and became the impersonation of the departed spirit, and was thus an object of reverence; or as still later in the more modem conceptions of Taoism, wherein the soul was supposed to consist of three

ANTIQUITY OF THE CONCEPTION 85

parts, the shadow which could wander away, the spirit that became incorporate in the tablet or a member of the family, and the third, which re- mained with the body and was subject to all the tortures of purgatory. Then anon, after the in- Yasion of the Buddhistic f aith, howbeit many cen- turies before the advent of Christianity, yet in comparatively modem times, the theosophic con- ception of ihe sept-psychic or seven-phased soul came into vogue, with all the complex meander- ings of the East Indian imagination.

The point that I am attempting to emphasice is merely that the notion of the survival of the spirit after death in some form, whether clear or vague, has ever existed in the human mind from the most primitive of times to the present hour.

CHAPTER ni

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION OF

nOIOBTALITT

Let us revert for a moment to the assertion that only in Christianity, and the religions that branched off from it, the notion of personal immortality 'Was inculcated. As already quoted from McCon- nell : ^ '^ The fact is that only in Islam and Chris- tendom is the essential immortality of the indi- vidual spirit assumed." This sentence seems in a nutshell to present a long-lived misconception of historical fact. Had the author said not that for the first time was the essential personality of the spirit assumed in these religions, but for the first time emphasized and illuminated, he would have come nearer the fact, although still farther away from the traditional conception.

It is so often declared that Jesus first brought immortality to life and gave hope of future ex- istence to the humblest individual, that for the sake of the truth it is but fair a further ezaminar tion of this declaration should be made.

We shall see, I think, that the notion of per- sonal conscious survival was a gradual evolution in human understanding and only in the time of Jesus reached a high altitude. Therefore at that

i^Brolutioii of Immortality."

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION ST

time it became so oonepicaoiis that to the casual student it would seem to be a revelation.

But we shall witness the gradual derelopment of the notion from the primary vagueness of an ab- stract conception to a distinct personal understand- ing, by reviewing hastily some of the literature re- lating to the soul after death* In this very ancient passage, for instance, from Ta-Hio (The Perfecting of One^s Self), whidi is called the chief of the Chinese ^* Kings," we read :

** Death is not destruction properly so-called, but a decomposition which resolves each substance into its natural state. The intellectual substance again as- cends to heaven from which it came, the animal spirit, khi, unites with the aerial fluid, and the terrestrial and aqueous substances turn once more to earth and water.**

We are not only surprised to find in this pas^ sage, which was written by Confucius at least five hundred years before Christ and probably ante- dates that epoch by many centuries, so clear an anticipation of the modern science of Chemistry, but a very dear forestatement of the abstruse phases of modem idealistic philosophy. Here it will be seen we have only a very vague assertion concerning the future state of the soul ^the in- tellectual principle'') 9 yet sufficient to show that the notion of the after life was struggling for ex- pression in the mind of the thinker.

Lao Tse, who, I have said, was a contemporary o^ but much older than, Confucius, approaches in

88 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

his statements somewhat nearer to the idea of personal survival, yet states nothing distinct con- cerning after deaUi consciousness. Nevertheless, in some passages he gives strong hint of the per- sonal hereafter. He declares ^^ That which is sub- tile and spiritual in man is the portion of Heaven ; that which pertains to flesh and bones is the por- tion of earth."

While in this passage we detect nothing distinct, in a statement of one of Lao Tse's immediate disciples, Chaung-Tse, known as Butterfly Chaung, who wrote at least as early as the Fourth century B. C, we read, ^^ Death is the commencement of life ;" and again, '^ There is no absorption of the individuality in the tau, because individuality is not entirely perishable."

Here at length, then, even in Chinese literature, we discover the several steps of evolution in the human conception of immortality, howbeit but in broad and vague outline. But when once the no- tion of personal immortality reaches a clear ex- pression in Chinese literature, it blossoms forth in telelogical luxuriance quite as effusive and imag- inative as that of Christianity or Mohammedan- ism.

In the later literature, which from our stand- point is still quite ancient, we discover clear and quite vivid descriptions of the future state, often so vividly set forth as to give the chills to those who could faithfully believe. Not in all the lit- erature of the Boman Catholic Dogma has such a horrifying description of Hell and Purgatory been

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION 80

set forth as that we find in the books of Channg- Tse and others. There are Ten Courts to Purga- tory and with unconscionable definiteness this col- orful writer depicts the increasing agony and suf- fering of each of the candidates who comes hither after death, and through which all living people must pass till they evolve through many re-incar- nations into the final absorption in Tao or eternal bliss.

As a sample of what Purgatoiy meant to these ancient Chinese, and by way of comparison in vividness of presentation of misery with what was once set forth by Christian theologians, read what Yu li Ch'ao Chaun says :

''In the Fifth Court the sinners are hurried away by a bull-headed, horse-faced demon to a famous ter- race where their physical punishments are aggra- vated by a view of their old homes. The Sixth Court is a vast noisy Gehenna, many leagues in extent and around it are sixteen wards. In the first the souls are made to kneel for a long time on iron shot. In the second they are placed up to their neck in filth. In the third they are pounded till the blood runs out. In the fourth iheir mouths are opened with iron pincers and filled full of needles. In the fifth they are bitten by rats. In the sixth they are enclosed in a net of thorns and nipped by locusts. In the seventh, they are crushed to a jelly. In the eighth, their skin is lacerated and they are bitten on the raw. In the ninth, their mouths are filled with fire. In the tenths they are licked with flames. In the eleventh, they are subjected to noisome smells. In the twelfth, they are butted by oxen and trampled on by horses. In the

40 MODERN LIGHT ON IMM ORTALITT

iliirteenthy their hearts are scratched* In the four- teenthy their heads are rubbed till their skulls come off. In the fifteenth, they are chopped in two at the waist. In the sixteenth, their skin is taken off and rolled up into spills/'

However laughable this description may seem to us it proves that the Chinese mind at last came into a very positive and personal apprehension of the after-death condition of mortal inhabitants of this planet But the picture is not all dark, for occasionally we come across really beautiful pas- sages indicating the state of the blissful and con- tented in the world beyond.

In the Eighteenth century a Chinese wrote the following beautiful lines :

^' Man is indeed of heavenly birth ; Though seeming earthy of the earth; ''

A very late poet writes with almost Christian inspiration these beautiful strains:

^ 'Tis common talk how partings sadden life; There are no partings for us after death ; Life's sweetest boon is after all to die ; Yet east and west the yellow fledglings fly. "What will life bring to me and I should stay? What will death bring to me and I should go? These thoughts surge through me in the light of day. And make me conscious that at last I know I '' ^

'While among the Hindu Brahmans the doctrine

i^See Giles' Chinese Literature, pasaim.

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION 41

of penonal survival of death may not have risen into the visiUe and illnminating oonsdonaness which it has attained in the Christian conception, nevertheless it may be fonnd expressly stated in their writmgs as a doctrine well understood.

It is therefore espedaUy surprising that any modem scholar should assert that only in Chris- toidom and Islam has the notion of personal im- mortality been propounded* Beferring to this problem, Prof. Both many years ago, after quot- ing many passages from the Vedas in the Journal of the Oerman Oriental Society j} remarks. ^^ We here find, not without astonishment, beautiful con- ceptions on immortality expressed in unadorned language with childlike conviction. If it were nec- essary, we might find here the most powerful weap- ons against the view, which has been lately re- vived and proclaimed as new, that Persia was the only birthplace of the idea of immortality, and that even the nations of Europe had derived it from that quarter. As if the religious spirit of every gifted race was not able to arrive at it by its own strength."

It is a fact which was not known to the English speaking world until revealed by Max Miiller that the ancient Brahmans actually believed in the after-death personal existence of those who died in the faith and that many of their prayers were directed to the gods with reference to their future preservation. Indeed he insists that no trace of

iVoL IV, p. 427.

42 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

metempsychosis can be found in the early Vedas but that the conception of individual immortality is picturesquely and poetically set forth.

If indeed we find passages in those most ancient of Scriptures which incorporate the prayers of earnest souls^ crying out, ^^ O^ Maruts, may there be to us a strong son, who is a living ruler of men : through whom we may cross the waters on the way to the happy abode ; then may toe come to your ovm house/* we can draw no other conclusion but that they believed there was an abode awaiting them beyond the mysterious passages of the grave, into which they believed they would some time be trans- ported.

We find, however, in such passages as the one just quoted, an intimation of that divisive s^iti- ment which so long prevailed among the ancients, that the abode of heaven was for those who were favorably endowed in this life; that the rulers, the royalty, the patricians and the well-bom alone could inherit it. For, as the passage quoted indi- cates, the birth of a strong son who would be a ruler of the tribe seemed to be a sine qua non to the deliverance of the household from the dark- ness of condemnation.

As a further proof of the clear conception of the future existence of the soul, we find that these ancient Scriptures intimated no less the pos- sible abode of the triumphant and the ^^good" than the place of darkness into which the unfor- tunate and the conquered should be cast There

EVOLUTION OP THE CONCEPTION 43

is one passage ^ ^^hich declares that the dead is re- warded for his good deeds, that he leaves or casts off all evil, and glorified takes his body with him* But we also read, a few verses further on, that the " dogs of Yama," Yama, who is the Vedic Devil, lie in wait for the departed, and they pray to the king of heaven to protect them against the mon- sters when they leave the earth* There is even a '^ pit " into which the lawless are said to be cast, not nnlike the Gehenna of the Jews, which was transported into the mythology of the Christian doctrine.

Indeed if we desired to search in all literature for a clear and vivid declaration of implicit faith in the after life we could scarcely discover any- thing more convincing than the following beauti- ful verses from the ninth chapter of the Bigveda:

^ Where there is eternal light, in the world where the snn is placed, in immortal, imperishable world, place me Soma I **

'^ Where king Vaivasata reigns, where the Becret place of heaven is, where these mighty waters are, there make me immortal/**

^ Where life is free, in the third heaven of heavens, where the worlds are radiant, there make me immor- tall''

^ Where wishes and desires are, where the bowl of

1 In Rigveda, X» 14, 3.

44 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the bright Soma is, where there is food and rejoicings there make me immortal I '^

''Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure reside, where the desires of our desire are attained, there make me immortal I **

Of course these passages do not contain the deep human note, the tender pathos or the profound earnestness of the Hebraic Psalmist, but it can- not be denied that, excepting only the coloration of the Hebraic poesy, its meaning is as clear and its conviction concerning the future life as em- phatic and undeniable.

Max MiUler apparently does not exaggerate when he writes the following sentences in his "The- osophy or Psychological Religion" (p. 158) '^ There is the unhesitating belief (among the Brahmans) that the soul does not die when the body does; there is the firm conyiction among them that there is a moral government of the world, and that the fate of the soul hereafter is de- termined by its life here on earth; to which was added as an inevitable corollary that the fate of the soul on earth must have been determined by its acts of a former life. All these thoughts, par- ticularly on their first spontaneous appearance, are full of meaning in the eyes of the student of re- ligion, and there are few countries where we can study their spontaneous growth so well as in India.''

Perhaps it has thus far been sufficiently shown, although in very brief and suggestive outline, that

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION 45

even in the Chinese and other ante-Christian re- ligions alone we discoTer all the varying phases of human belief in the after life, from the crudest and most primitiye to the refined and spiritualized phase of the Christian religion. All that can be said as to the especial presentation of the doctrine in the person of Jesus and his disciples is that in their handling and inculcation it was surrounded by an atmosphere of gentleness and the sweet per- fume of a purified life. It was '^ brought to life/' not in that Jesus brought to humankind anything like a revelation, but that he seized on that which through these countless ages had been growing grad- nally more and more clear in the human mind, till it' had become the fondest and deepest yearning of the human heart, and then brought it home as a solace and inspiration to each individual.

Undoubtedly the more ancient conceptions of personal and conscious immortality referred alone to the high in state, the chiefs in church and the ex- alted in society. The glory of heaven was reserved originally for those who were already blessed with the best the earth could afford. The common peo- ple were the wandering herds of the plains and for them no provisions had been made in the after life, as none had been made for them here. They were inconsequential here, save a» they became useful and profitable slaves for those who needed their services. Slowly the mind began to grasp the idea that such as were serviceable to the high in state and church, who had already passed beyond, might also receive the favor of after-death

46 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

existence, bu^ only that they might continue to serve and attend those whom they had so faithfully obeyed here. Ever thus does the state of the after life reflect the state of the life that now is. And only when late in the far-reaching centuries, the individual, the unimportant and for so long neglected human being, rose as a personality above the mass and began to be recognized in his own rights and personal dignity, did the notion become popular that every human being, high or low, would pass beyond the grave and enjoy or suffer the continuity of existence according to his deeds while here on earth.

The glory of the teaching of Jesus and early Christianity is not that it revealed or assmned, but that it enpiphasized and beautified the doctrine of the personal, conscious inmiortality, or at least, after life, of each and every himaan being who once inhabited the earth. But the darker coloring in the picture is found in the fact that though the age permitted sufficient consideration for the humblest of human beings, in so far as to grant him the privilege of future survival, the jwwer of the few, privileged with the world's goods, was still so great that they durst not extend the inunortality of sal- vation to all alike, but severed them into ihe sheep and goats, some to go their way into everlasting life and some to everlasting death.

In all these varying phases of doctrinal teach- ing concerning the conjecture of future existence, we clearly discern the reflection of the ages' in- terpretation of the social status of man; and as

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION 47

this state was regarded here it was discerned to be hereafter. When man was a ser^ a slave, an helot, a social outcast, there might be after life for him, but it would be that of the debased and suffering. Only when freedom came sufficiently into human life to elevate the individual and make it seem possible that every human being might have his rights and privileges recognized in this life did the notion enter that for every one there was a chance of recognition and salvation in the life be- yond.

This latter fact I think we see mnphasized in the state of the slaves of Rome at the time of Jesus.

While in Borne slavery had reached its climac- teric period, and at no time in human history was more common or subject to inhuman abuse; yet alongside of its virulent growth there had sprung up an anti-sentiment which at the advent of Jesus had permeated all the thinking world and softened the sentiment of mankind. Never before were there gathered together under single households so many serfs and slaves of the lowest order, yet never before, likewise, were there multitudes of servile people who enjoyed so many immunities and privileges, who were looked upon as such do- mestic equals as during that period of the world's history that just preceded and followed the advent of the Savior.

It is commonly supposed that it was the newly introduced humane sentiments of Christianity which ultimately caused the overthrow of universal

48 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

filavery; that had not this new religion come to play 80 important a part in the world's history the evil would have grown worse and ultimately over- thrown all civilization. This sentiment is so per- sistent and conmion that I believe it calls for more careful attention. I do not think history sustains it. One author writes : ^' Christianity found slav- ery permeating and corrupting every domain of human life, and in six centuries of conjQict suc- ceeded in reducing it to nothing. • • . Christianity in the early ages never denounced slavery as a crime ; never encouraged or permitted slaves to rise against their masters and throw eff the yoke; yet she permeated the minds of both masters and slaves with ideas utterly inconsistent with the spirit of slavery. Within the church mas- ter and servant stood on absolute equality.'' ^

Within a single paragraph perhaps it would be difficult to find anywhere else more misstatements of the truth. It can easily be shown first that the alleged new anti-slavery sentiment introduced by Christianity was not at all new, but merely an appropriation of the pagan anti-slaveiy sentiment already declared with such eloquence by her great orators and philosophers; and second, that the ac- tual ecclesiastical sentiment given out and legalized by the church was not only not against the spirit of slavery, but in emphatic encouragement and en- forcement of it

When we recall that, instead of Christianity

iW. R. Brownlow, ''Slarery and Serfdom in Europe," Lecture 1-2.

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION 49

lumsg aotoflUy wiped out the eziBtenoe of skveiy in ^'aix oentnries'' after its adveiity it actually continued to exist, under the sanction and defense of the Church, as late as the latter half of the Nineteenth century, and then was not wiped out from the most enlightened nation in the world except by the shedding of blood through the anti- slavery agitation awakened, not in the Church, but by the infidels without; remembering, I say, these facts, it is astonishiog that one who purports to be an historian of recognized place should utter such wholly false statements as those just quoted*

Students who fasten their attention upon the atrocious (system of slavery which existed in the later Sepublic and the Empire of Bome, and pre- fer to lose sight of its humane features and its growing decadence, grow urgent in their declaration that alone by the permeating sentiment of Chris- tianity was it abolished. But the lives of thou- sands of the slaves in ancient Home were not so appalling as some incline to think. • Indeed many of them enjoyed all the privil^es of the noblest members of the household.

The vemae, that is, those who were bom under the roofs of their masters, and these numbered untold thousands, enjoyed a life so comparatively . free that they preferred it to manumission. ^^ It . is to them that their masters often refer in the /

inscriptions (on the tombs) with greatest respect and tenderness. They were supposed to be at^ tached to the family into which they were bom. Besides that, they were not branded by the hu-

50 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMOKTALITY

miliation of a public sale, and this meant a great deaL The bought slave had appeared in the market place, his feet marked with white and a label roimd his neck on which his merits or defects were enumerated; he had been set on a platform and had been made to jump, turn a somersault, walk, run, laugh and talk. The slave bom in the house had at least escaped this ignominious ordeal. It was as though his dignity as a man had not been entirely lost, and as though he must be more capa- ble of noble feeling. The man himself was so proud of this title that in some instances it was retained after liberation, and the freedman caused it to be inscribed on his tomb." ^

Side by side with the increasing humane treat- ment of the better class of slaves in the ancient Empire there had developed the parallel sentiment against slavery itself as an institution. Of course we can scarcely expect that among a people where the ownership of slaves was so common that even plebeians and lowly workmen possessed them ; that where one so poor as Horace that he could enjoy only a few leeks, chick weeds and cakes for his best meal, could nevertheless possess three slaves to serve it to him, as he himself declares ; we could not expect, I repeat, among such a people a senti- ment against slavery of a popular and aggressive lype. While, as the same author says, "At that time nobody seems to have perceived the amount of the evil, and as its extent was not realized, only

1 " Historian's History," Vol. VI, p. 359.

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION 61

partial remedies were propoeed/' yet gradually tlie saitiments and the habits of the more cultured were massing against the institution* ^^ Efforts often suooessfnl were made to render the slave's lot less hard. They were given some security against their masters ; the philosophers proclaimed, and all recognized with them, thai those were men; lawyers even inscribed in the codes that slavery was contrary to nature. It seems as if this princi- ple, had it been followed out in all its consequences, must have eventually led to the abolition of slav- ery/' ^

Thus we see the humane forces, the finer and more mellow sentiments of the human breast, were playing strongly in the breast of that ancient and corrupt civilization, which were rallying against the most evil of all civic institutions even long be- fore Christianity made its advent as a civic force.

It will be answered, however, that the sentiment did not prevail ; that just as it seemed to be grow- ing into prominence and authority ; just as it had about become strong enough to cause laws and en- actments to be established in favor of its develop- ment, reactionary forces set in that ultimately over- threw it completely. *^ It is under Augustus, just when manners are becoming milder and humanity seems to triumph, that a senatusH^onsidtum ordains that when a master has been assassinated by a serv- ant, all those who slept under his roof that night, innocent car guilly, shall be put to death.''

iJb., p. 3S6.

52 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

It is such reaetionaxy npheayals as this, such a return in the ancient civilication to the impulse of primitive animalism, that causes the Christian apologist to insist that never, unless the rdigious authoriljr of the churdh had intervened, had the institution been finally overthrown and the nobler sentiments finally prevailed.

But unfortunately here again history seems to fail our apologist For not only in the age of Augustus, while Christianity was as yet but a fee- ble infant, unorganized and unknown, do we read of the atavistic decline in sentiment, but in a later age when the Boman arms had submitted to the subtle forces of the new religion, and under the authority of Empire had come to be recognized as the religion of the state, we find a similar sav- age outburst which is wholly discouraging. ''It is no less a matter of surprise that under Constan- tino, in Christian times, the laws, wkieh since the AntarUnes had heeame more humane, all at once revert to the ancient severities against the slaves. These sudden relapses made them lose in a mo- ment all that they had gained during centuries, and all had to be b^gun again.''

Manifestly what we are witnessing is the grad- ual breaking down of a sentiment which had ex- isted for ages and had so deeply grown into the breast of the people that its eradication will require centuries. Naturally the relapses witnessed are but the sudden reversion to the ancient disposition, which will occur from time to time^ as the flame flutters again and again into life ere it finally

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION 68

releases the bladieiied wide Nature's foroes were at work, despite Christianityi and what she ac- complished was directly in line with Nature's work, yet only we regret to say to a limited extent For just as there were inhuman reyersions in senti- ments and acts am<Hig the old Bomans, so again and again we see when the Chnroh has grown into gigantic power in the later ages she herself com- mands the Tcry reactionary forces which in the ancient times had led to such monstrous evils.

Instead of being true, as our apologist above quoted contends, that in the church, slave and mas- ter were absolutely on the same footing, the church, on the contrary, undertook time and again to make the fate of the slave more miserable, and ultimately descended into the appalling inconsistency of de- claring slavery a divine institution, so that the fate of the slave might under the sanction of the Church be made still more miserable.

Says von Dollinger: '' The popes were wcmt to issue edicts of slavery against whole towns and provinces; thus, for instance, Boniface VIII against the retainers of Colonnas; Clement V against the Venetians ; Sixtus IV against the Flor- entines; Julius II against the Bolognese and the Venetians; and the meaning of it was that any one who could succeed in capturing any of the per- sons of the condemned was required to make slaves of litem • • • • The privilege, which had sprung up in Bome and lasted for some years, by virtue of which a slave taking refuge on the Capi- tol became free, was abolished in 1648 by Paul HL

64 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Bome^ of all the great powers of Europe^ was the last to retain slavery. Scholasticism having un- dertaken in the Thirteenth century to justify the existing state of things, a theological sanction was discovered for the existence of slavery • . • and declared that it was a Christian institution, since original sin had deprived man of any right to free- dom.^' ^

This is, of course, not the place to go into fur- ther detail on such a fascinating subject, but I have perhaps shown sufficiently that the theory which transfers to organized Christianity all the honor of the abolition of slavery is a myth pure and simple.

The introduction of the sentiment of Jesus em- phasizing the importance of the individual, and giving promise of salvation to the poor and rich, the slave and free alike, cannot therefore be re- garded as something new and unique in history. It was but the emphasis of a sentiment already rapidly growing in the pagan world. However, not even in the mind of Jesus, no less than in the actions of His successors, was the predisposi- tion against the downtrodden wholly eradicated. While He sought and encouraged the poor, it must not be forgotten that He taught them their pov- erty was essential and their duty was to learn to be contented and resigned to the will of Qod in their condition. ^^ Hath not God chosen the poor of this world t " " Blessed be ye poor, for yours is

1 Studies in Evropean History, p. 75.

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION 66

the £iiigdom of Heaven." " The poor ye have al- ways with you." " When thou makest a feast call the poor." ^' SeU all that thou hast and give to tho poor." .

In all these quotations we mark merely the rec- ognition of poverty as the stereotyped and neces- sary condition of a large portion of the human race^ wi^ no intimation that poverty in itself will ever be eradicated.

The recognition of the poor and the rich, trans- formed into a spiritual sentiment, we observe again exceedingly prominent in the thought of Jesua when He divides the entire race into the goats and the sheep which shall be separated at the judg- ment, the sheep going into everlasting joy and the goats to everlasting woe.

We are not, therefore, justified, it would appear^ to attribute to Jesus directly, and certainly not ta any of His disciples, either directly or indirectly,, any opposition to slavery or poverty as such, but are compelled rather to admit that they encour- aged it by seeking to enforce the poor and the en- slaved into a state of mental resignation that would bring peace to the world and to their souls.

Hence we do not find either in the founder of Christianity or in its subsequent theological and ecclesiastical history any other sentiment concern- ing the possibilities of salvation in the after life than those that we have seen already prevailed among the ancient Hindus and other pagan peoples.

CHAPTEE IV

THE NATURALISTIC ORIGIN OF THE CONCEPTION OF IMMORTAIJTT

Before we proceed further with our study of the problems involved in the theory of immortality we must remind the reader that no single view relating to the survival of the soul has permeated human thought, but that almost as many varying interpretations of the future history of the soul have been entertained as there are human races.

If all mankind from the earliest days recognized the vogue of but a single conception, on which all faiths and religions were based, then we might suppose there underlay the entire problem a fixed and fundamental principle on which a final truth might rest. But when we discover that there is indeed no apparent fundamental principle involved ; but that on the contrary the entire race seems to have been ever dumbfounded and confused with the mystery of future existence, it would appear that the problem relates rather to a psychological experience, variable with the changing conditions of the race, than to an actual fact which is indis- putable in nature. It would appear that what hu- manity has ever conceived of the soul and its post^ mortem existence has evolved from temperamental and environmental circumstances; that every tribe and individual race has been nurtured under a

THE NATUEALISTIC ORIGIN 67

specific or tribal conception, which could have had no existence nnder other circunistances or among any other people; and that not until all these peo- ples met or mingled did there come to be anything like a ccnnmon or similar belief relating to this per- plexing problem.

If this be a f act, then, it would appear that we should sedc the origin of this belief or these beliefs not in any supernatural authority ; nor yet in any form of religious worship which compelled its deo^ laration; nor yet in any occult or arcane experi- ence of mankind out of which the dreamy notion arose ; but merely in the natural surroundings and historic experience of each of the peoples who have from age to age founded and developed the ever varying civilixation of mankind.

This thought has deeply impressed me as I have reviewed the progress of the idea from period to period of human history, and have observed how each distinctive notion has been so charactmzed that (me sees in it the especial idiosyncracies of the race or nation to which it belongs. For in- stance, on reading the translations of the Egyp- tian monoliths on which were inscribed their con- ceptions of immortality one can instantly observe the national diaracteristics as differentiated from the characteristics of the East Indians and Ori- entals, whose ideas of immortality are written in their vedas and numerous scriptures. One could not for an instant confuse the realistic notion of metempeychosis as described in Egyptian literature with the more refined conception of reincarnation

58 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

which was portrayed in the ever poetical scrip- tures of the Brahmans and Vedantists of India. In the one is discerned the practical, mathematical, precise and pragmatical characteristic of the Egyp- tian mind, in the other the fantastic, dreamy, vague and picturesque quality of the Hindu mind.

To each people the notion was as fixed and cer- tain, as comforting and inspiring as to the other; yet the one contemplated the return of the liberated soul to the imprisonment of the beasts of the field or the birds of the air, while the other conceived of an ancestry whose glory was once the burden of historic regard. One discerned no shame in the association of the soul with the crocodile and the serpent, with the cow and the pigeon; while the other conceived of the soul as an age-eternal princi- ple which had previously figured in the happen- ings of the human race and but once more returned to engage again in life's activities. This fact is far better expressed by James E. Clarke, when he says : " The idea of the religion of India was Spirit: the One, the Infinite, the Eternal; a pure spiritual pantheism, from which the elements of time and space are quite excluded. The religion of Egypt stands at the opposite pole of thonght as it& antagonist Instead of Spirit it accepts Body; instead of Unity, Variety; instead of Sub- stance, Form." *

In this description we discern the predominant mental qualities of the two nations ; the one inclin*

1 ^ Ten Great ReligioiiB.

THE NATURALISTIC ORIGIN 69

ing to precision, analytical apprehension and math- ematical synthesis, the other to metaphysical fancy, poetical vagueness and abstract phantasies. Hence in the doctrine of the Egyptians we find merely the bald fact of the transmigration of the departed sonls of men into the bodies of beasts, birds and reptiles, devoid of any teleological consequence. But the metaphysical mind of the Hindu will not suffer it to postulate the mere possibility of the soul's transmigration into inferior forms without assigning a logical reason for the transformation. Hence in the Hindu philosophy we meet first with the teleological notion of retribution; the meaner souls descending into the baser forms, the better and nobler spirits ascending into the rarer and more beautiful bodies.

The Egyptian mind is, therefore, apparently, the more primitive, for we can trace the bald no* tion of transmigration into the forms of beasts, etc., in the legendary tales of the autochthones of dmost all lands.

Animadverting to the notion of transmigration we meet here the most primitive conception of the race relating to the future of the human soul. The origin of this belief, which has played so large a part in the philosophy and religion of humankind, is perhaps b^ond apprehension, though many theo- ries have been advanced. But we shall detect that even this primal notion of the race is at once col- ored by the climate and conditions of each distinc- tive tribe, evidencing the fact that wherever the idea may have come from it is necessarily one

60 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMOBTALITY

which the yaiying ezperienoes of humanity have generated and transfigared.

''One of the most usual beliefs of the lower races is that the souls of dead ancestors are re- bom in the children^ having a likeness to the f ather^s or the mother's family. • • *• It does not, how- ever, follow that the body in which the soul takes up its new abode should be human; it may enter into a bear or a jackal, or fly away in a bird, or, as the Zulus think, it may pass into one of those harmless snakes which creep about in the huts, liking the warmth of the family hearth, as they did while they were old people, and still likely tak- ing the food offered by their grandchildren. In such simple forms there appears among the lower races the notion of transmigration which in Brah- manism and Buddhism becomes a great religious doctrine," says Tyler in " Anthropology/^ ^

But, as I have intimated, we shfdl detect the nat- ural origin of this belief in the experiences of the various tribes, when we consider how they seized upon this prevalent notion and altered it accord- ing to their various situations. Evidently the ob- jects into which the departed souls were supposed to enter after death were those with which each particular race became most intimate or which for some reason especially attracted their attention or admiration* For instance, we are told that '' The Sonthals believe the souls of the good to enter into fruit-bearing trees. The Fowhatans believed the

ip. 300.

THE NATUEALISTIO ORIGIN 61

B(ni]fl of their chiefs to paw into particalar wood- birds, vAieh (hey therefore spared. The Tlascalans of Mexico thoQj^t that the souls of their nobles mi- grated after death into beautiful singing birds, and the spirits of plebeians into beetles, weasels and other insignificant creatures. The Zulus of South A&ica are said to believe in the passage of the dead into snakes, or into wasps or lizards. The Dayaks of Borneo imagine themselves to find the souls of the dead, damp and blood like, in the trunks of the trees.^

Here we may discern an intimation of the origin of the conception of transmigration and its various modifications in the distinctive predilection of the tribes toward some especial object in nature. The particular birds, beasts, insects, trees, growths, etc., which the different tribes and people selected as the distinctive abodes of their dead must have been the result of some particular experiences with these objects which the various races enjoyed* Either because of the attractiveness of the objects, as the beautiful birds, or their utility, as certain species of trees, or because of their repidsiveness, as special insects, each in its turn was chosen by the different people to satisfy some particular disposition in their natures.

Beligion in all ages has been utilitarian, and an unconscious factor of evolution. Hence we discern in this most primitive of all religious doctrines the dtion to employ religious mystery for the bene-

1 Gftbbe, ^ The Philoeophy of India,'' following A. B. Gough, ^TIm Fhiloiophy of the upudthads," ete.

68 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

faction of the race. The beautiful birds, the most useful trees, the necessary insects, etc., were all em- bodiments of departed, souls and must therefore be protected and preserved. Indeed, we may eyen as early as this in human history discover the origin of the belief in heaven and hell as evolved in the more refined religions of histoiy. Mark the belief of the Tlascalans of Mexico, who consigned the souls of their chiefs to beautiful singing birds, which they wished to preserve, but the spirits of the plebeians to beetles, weasels, etc, which they preferred to de- stroy.

The natural origin of all beliefs in immortality among all people may thus be discerned by dis* covering the primitive source from which they were derived, and the natural generation of this primi- tive belief. Evidently there is nothing mysterious or supernatural about it; it is merely the conse- quence of commonplace experience.

Among the attempts which have been made to discover the origin of the doctrine of metempsycho- sis in the refined phase which it assumed among the Brahmans some are not a little amusing. In- stead of seeking a primary origin in the experiences of aboriginal races, sometimes the investigators pick up a custom developed in later stages of civiliza- tion and rest a supposition on this fact from which they draw imaginary conclusions. For instance, the ever prolific Frenchman, Voltaire, observing that meat eating was regarded among the Brahmans as an evil custom and therefore eschewed by them, ' deduces the fanciful theory that the prohibition of

THE NATURALISTIC ORIGIN 68

meat eating, being primarily merely a hygienic restriction, resulted in the prohibition to kill ani- mals. That in order to enforce this restriction of the slaughter of the animals, the priest, always the raling class, conceived the notion that the animals were the re-embodiments of the souls of their an- cestors, and thus overawed the multitude. ^^The consequence of the further extension of the animal cult was that the whole animal kingdom was felt as a sort of appurtenance to the human species and was gradnaUy aaeimilated to man in the imagina- tion of the people ; from there it was simply a step to accept the continuance of human life in the bodies of animals."

Voltaire had evidently not looked deep enough; or rather in his day when the work of the ar- chaeologists had not yet been accomplished, it was doubtless impossible for him to look deep enough to discern the probable natural origin of this pe- culiar doctrine. It undoubtedly lay in the grad- ual absorption, by the more advanced people who came in later periods to occupy the soil, of the prim- itive notions of the autochthones who derived their imaginative conceptions concerning the future of departed souls from their experience with the in- ferior animal kingdom and the visible objects of Nature.

The entire emphasis of authoritarian religion has ever been on the importance of the religious doctrine itself as a deliverance of divine command. It is only since the spirit of the times has reverted to the scientific method that we have come to dis-

64 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

cem the possibility of deciphering the naturalistic origin of all religious doctrines, and thus freeing ourselves from their overawing importance. We are coming gradually to understand that religious doctrine is but a late evolution of human experi- ence; that it is, so to speak, an after thought, -which comes to emphasize some human experience whose value has been discovered and whose perma- nence it is thought wise \o encourage. To study the later and more refined doctrine, unrelated to its primitive origin, gives us but little knowledge of its value or permanent quality. Studied in this fashion, it is clothed with an inviolable sanctity that utterly removes it from the desecrating hand of modem scientifio investigation. It is then viewed not as a phenomenon of natural experience, but as an epiphany of divine intervention, which, to gaze at with the unshaded eye, will cause the mind to lose its balance and the soul to dissipate. If such fear seizes the student he would better cease from his labors, for he can accomplish noth- ing.

Perhaps in regard to no other notion which has

ever penetrated the human mind has there been so much trepidation felt by the race as it has experi- enced in its contemplation of the after-death possi- bilities of the human souL Even to this day not merely the vast majority of the human race, but even its studious and cultared moiety, halt at a serious investigation of this doctrine, and rather than come face to face with the possibility of a demonstration of the final annihilation of the soul

THE NATURALISTIC OBIGIN 6ft

and demolition of the doctrine^ which for so many ages has consoled the race in one fonn or another^ they wiU utterly desist, preferring their ignoranoa to disconcerting knowledge.

It is not in this spirit that this essay is nndei^ taken ; but wholly in the spirit of sincere investiga- tion, unconcerned as to what the truth may reveaL

Therefore, that we may the better apprehend the manner in which the doctrine of immortality came gradually to occupy so important a place in. the human mind I think we should review the vari- ous forms it has assumed among many people, that we may discern its origin and gradual transforma- tion according to the surroundings and experiences through which they passed. This we shall under- take in the chapters immediately following.

CHAPTER V

PEmiTIVE SOURCES OF BELIEF IN

AFTER LIFE

To the student the one startling fact that con- fronts him when he investigates the notions of the soul and its possibilities entertained by mankind is the manifest survival of primitive beliefs disguised only by a transparent mantle of culture and finesse which persists even to the present moment* All those exquisite, poetic, solacing and unctious concep- tions of the soul and its after life, which occupy so large a part of the contemplations of the most cul- tured and intellectual of people, may be easily traced to their first beginnings in the phantastic imagin- ings of the most primitive of savage tribes. It would appear that the conception of the soul instead of being an inherent and ineradicable possession of the mind is, after all, a logical deduction of natural experience — a notion, at first vague and indefinite, and finally rising into positive and realistic pro- portions, which sprung from the primal observa- tions of natural conditions.

It is safe to assert that no poetic fancy relating to the human soul which enters even to-day into the ritual and ceremony of the refined service of the modem Church, but can be traced directly to the primitive notions of the earth's first inhabitants, and which sprung naturally from their surround- ings, their experiences and their daily lives.

PRIMITIVE SOUECES OF BELIEF CT

What can be moie f asdnating than the idea that when the rude mould of human day has been oon* signed to the elements it has not wholly vanished, but has left trailing behind it the shadow of itself, which lingers to curse or bless according to the predilection of the observer. This idea has been woven into a thousand fancies in song and service, in poetry and patriotism, through all the ages. The niad is replete with variations of this pictur- esque fancy, as is even the Bible itself, howbeit somewhat more refined. In the Iliad the shadows rise to the proportions of animate beings surcharged with life and all its function, although the media through which they act are but simulacra— « wax-like forms electrified into momaitary activ- ities.

In the Bible the reappearing forms retain all the likeness and verisimilitude of the originals scarcely so distinguishable that they can be separated from the living. Yet in either case the apparitions are regarded as so real that they must be supplied with the actual food and raiment of the human body. The angels that visited Lot were as real to him as human beings in the flesh, even as the remains of the departed among the Greeks are supposed to be refreshed and rejuvenated, even as they lie in the grave, by the supply of the material elements of alimentation. " * It is only/ says Thirlwall, * after their strength has been repaired by the blood of a slaughtered victim, that they (the ghosts of the de- parted) recover reason and memory for a time, can recognize their living friends and feel anxiety for

68 MODEBN LIGHT ON DOCOBTALITY

those tliej have left on earth.' That these dwellers in Hades have some substantiality, is implied by the fact both that they are trooping to drink the sac- rificial bloody and hj the fact that Ulysses keeps them back with his sword." ^

While the apparitions of the Bible seem to be re- habilitated with the actual flesh and blood, sonl and mind, of the living forms of human day, in the Hiad we behold as yet the more primitive or orig- inal form of belief, from which the Bible notion descended, in the still vaguer and more shadowy forms which the ^osts assume. This we note par- ticularly indicated in the lamentation of Achilles over the dead body of Patrodus, who had met such an unhappy end: ''Ay me^ there remaineth then in the house of Hades, a spirit and a phantom of the dead, albeit the life be not anywise there- in."

In myriad phases of fanciful form this concep- tion of the shade of the departed has played its ef- fects upon history and literature. We are not yet free from the superstition that in some mysterious manner the shadowy forms of the departed may overtake us in the ways of life, and many of us still wait in anticipation of the moment when we shall encounter such an apparition. Many still in the dreamy gloaming of the twilight almost feel the touch of the invisible hands and hear the music of inaudible voices. We are still so persuaded they win yet return,

1 Spencer, Sociolofly, 1-1, p. 17S.

PBIMITIVE SOUBCES OF BELIEF 6»

^ It may be in the ereniBg,

When the work of day is done. And we have time to sit in the twilij^ty And watch the setting sun,"

that in spite of the rade effects of modem sdenoe upon onr primitive fancies we refuse to relinquish them without a protest

But stem sci^ice must look the facts in the face and ask whence have come to the mind these no- tions of the shadowy figure of the soul, and is it an innate idea or the result of ancestral experience. The latter we are forced to decide is the only log* ical deduction.

When we recall that the words '^ shade" and '^breath" stood originally as the distinctive expres- sions of the souly or apparition of the departed, th^i we camiot resist the conclusion. The whole of liter- ature is now full of illustrations of this fact Among the natives the specific words employed meant shadow, ghost or apparition. The New Eng- land tribes call the soul, chemung, shadow. In fact, among all the native tribes, it is now known, the words employed meant either breath or shade, pre- cisely as in the Hebrew tongues two words were used to indicate the soul ; one being the spirit, neshamah, breath ; and the other, nephesh, animal soul, or the psychic replica of the body.

In fact, we may discern all the most refined in- terpretations of the soul primarily anticipated in the fancies of earth's autochthones. Among the philo- sophical Greeks, especially in the analytical mind of

70 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Aristotle^ tJie oonoeption of the soul had attained its moBt refined and dafisified piesentaticm. Out of his superb and oompleoc system this simple classifi- cation may be outlined, as presented by Bain: First the soul of the plants, the vegetative soil ; then the animal soul, the soul of the inferior kingdoms ; then the human soul, the intellectual principle in de- pendence on the physical organism ; then the active intellect, pure reason and cognition of the highest principles.

While such a classification seems to have its orig^ ination only in the abstract possibilities of logical thought, it may not surprise us a little to learn that its origin lay in the utmost dq[>ths of primitive and unintellectualized human fancy. The notion not only that the plant life has inherent soul, but even that inanimate or rock life is also accompanied by a soul presence, is as old as the imagination of the mind. The notion is the direct result of the idea which so commonly prevailed among the primitive tribes that the breath and the shadow which em- anated from the living object were the soul itself, and that when the body physically disappeared these soul-forms still continued to exist.

Each rock set against the sunlight casts its own shadow. Therefore, the shadow being the soul, the rock is mystically endowed. Every quadruped and feathered form of life breathes as does the human form, therefore each is possessed of a soul similar to that of men. Not knowing, as science to-day in- forms us, that the plants of the earth also breathe, the ancients observed that they did at least cast a

PRIMITIVE SOUECES OF BELIEF 71

shadow, and therefore they must, as well as other ob- jects less anixnatei be conceived as endowed with souls. Therefore the entire air and all the earth are replete with shadowy and invisible forms, which to the aboriginal mind, were souls or apparitions. Here we may discern the genesis of the polytheistic phases of antique religion which prevailed for so many ages through the world. The transition from the conception of an invisible soul, vaguely forefig- ured in the visible shadow or the invisible breath, to the presence of unseen deities of lesser and greater natures, is too apparent to call for consideration. Yet, in passing, it might be well to quote a passage from a writer who shows clearly the transition which took place:

^The Laches worshipped every stone as a god, as they said that they had all been men, and that ill men were converted into stones after death, and that a day was coming when all stones would be raised as men. They also worshipped their own shadow, so that they always had fhdr god with them and saw him when it was daylight. And though they knew that the shadow was produced by the light and an intervening object, they replied that it was done by the Sun to give Ihem gods. . . . And when the shadows of trees and stones were pointed out to them it made no difference, as they considered the shadows of the trees to be the gods of the trees, and the shadows of the stones the gods of the stones, and therefore the gods of their gods.***

The strange notion that the shadow and the breath

iPlediahita, quoted by Spencer, Sociology, 1-1» p. ISO.

^2 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

^ere the soul-presence of the body speedily gave rise to the idea that they must have somewhere in the body a special place of residence. Therefore, cer- tain of the organs were so designated. Naturally, the heart, which ever has seemed the source of life and the seat of the emotions, soon suggested itself as the mystic abode of the soul ; and anon the blood itself, as the life element, and the eye, the window of the soul, as we ourselves still assert.

This latter conception, among the New Zealand- ers, developed into most poetic and fascinating pro- portions. Not only was the eye the seat of the soul, but when it sank into the dark, in the descent of the body to original day, it triumphed over the body by ascending to the skies and constituting one of the stars in the celestial galaxy. Especially was it be- lieved that the left eye of every chief who was slain in battle became a star, while the right descended to Reinga, the abode of the shades, beneath the steep, precipitate seashore at the North Cape. So far did this beautiful fancy develop that the Pleiades were to these imaginative primitives but the selected eyes of seven great chiefs who had fallen valiantly in war, and were now immortalized in the glory of the seven lamps that shone in the lambent heavens.

Perhaps never before was the notion of the soul's ascent more picturesquely unfolded, and yet can we doubt that this crude, howbeit bei^utiful notion, formed the basis of all the later ideas so prevalent in all religions, namely, that the abode of the soul -was the place of perpetual light, and that the sold itself was a ray of light that sometimes re-

PRTMTTIVE SOURCES OF BELIEF 78

turned to earth ? To the ancient BrahmanB the gods were resplendent rays of glory : div, light, being the root of onr term divinity. On all the catacombs of the early Christians are to be found inscriptions relative to the ascent of the soul as a ray of light into the realm of eternal and unquenchable glory. Even to this day in our latest poetry and imagina- tive literature we reflect this same primary fancy; as thus, Casimir, the Polish poet :

** It kindles all my soul.

My country's loveliness! Those starry choirs That watch around the pole. And the moon's tender light, and heavenly fires Through golden halls that roll.''

*«

Me, for the celegtial homes of glory bom.

Why, here, 0, why so long, Do ye behold an exile from on high ?

Here, 0, ye shining thrbng. With lilies spread the moimd where I shall lie:

Here let me drop my chain. And dust to dust returning, cast away

The trammels that remain; The rest of me shall spring to endless day I

9»

Manifestly the survival of ancestral thought in our conceptions of the soul is so pertinacious that we must needs refer constantly to this source when we wish intelligently to interpret any predilection which we entertain concerning it. It does not, of course, necessarily follow that because our present notions and beliefs are but palpable survivals of

H MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

ancient imaginings, that they are therefore false and can be traced to no actual counterpart in Nature.

But the fact which we must never lose sight of is that if we desire to attain a scientific and satis- factory theory concerning the soul and its possible history, we shall find but little comfort in the sur- vivals from primitive belief that still remain in the racial mind. This survival by no means can be ac- cepted (as for so many ages it was accepted because supposed to be not a survival but an innate concep- tion), as a convincing proof of the existence of the soul or of its after life. If any proof of such a possibility is to be discovered it must be sought else- where ; for it is clear that the entire family of sur- vivals, relative to the soul's existence and history, is so manifestly but the psychological relic of primi- tive fanc^ and imagination, founded on observable experience, that it can have no weight whatever in determining the problem. This conclusion will be- come more apparent as we further review the vary- ing forms which this belief assumed among the tribes and nations of the earth.

CHAPTER VI

DBUTDIC SOURCE OF BEUEF IN AFTER

LIFE

In almost all the etudiea of national or tribal con- ceptions of immortality the authors seem to have approached the problem with a preconceived idea; and thus biased, seek apparently for every possible feature that will enforce their theories. A disposi- tion seems g^ierally to prevail to seize upon every minute detail that apparently points to such corrob- oration, without adopting the scientific method of tracing the origin of the particular features which are emphasised. If, for instance, among the prim- itive peoples, or the people who immediately fol- lowed them, as among the Stone and early Iron Age communities, any custom is discovered which in a natural or mysterious manner makes apparent ref- erence to the idea of immortality, it is at once em- phasized as a proof that the conception is so primary in human thought it must be innate, and conse* quently an indisputable fact in Nature. Many au- thors have dwelt upon the peculiar customs which prevailed in the placing of the dead within the curi- ous graves known as cromlechs, or stone-mounds. All throu^ Scandinavia, Norway and Denmark, remains of these strange sculptures may be seen, and they afford ample ground for speculation as to the rel^ious beliefs which compelled their construction.

^ The cromlechs consist/' according to DuChaiDu,

76 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOKTALITT

^'of from three to five large stones standing up- rights and so placed as to form a ring, with a large block or boulder on top/' The top stone was fre- quently used as an altar on which to perform sac- rifices. The walls of the. interior chamber were very carefully prepared with gravel and smoothed stones. The individual cromlechs were used for single corpses, but those made of lengthened passage ways were so constructed that numerous bodies could be interred. Now, the remarkable feature of these dolmens or cromlechs is that the bodies were not interred in a supine position, but sitting with their legs bent toward their chins and their hands across their knees. However, this was not a uni- versal custom, for in many of the passage^aves we find that the bodies were lain outstretched, with their heads always to the north.

The fact, nevertheless, that in many of the graves the bodies were so curiously bent has caused consid- erable speculation, and especially among those who think they ever discern something mysterious and extra-natural in the religious usages of mankind. Not the least curious interpretation of this kind I find commented on favorably in the book to which I have already referred, Louis Elbe's " Fu- ture Life." He seems to think that the Abbe Wor- sinsky of Apar in Hungary, a Catholic authority, made a genuine discovery when in his discourse before the International Catholic Congress, in 1901, he declared that this strange custom '^oan be prompted only by a belief in a resurrection.'' He seems to think that no other thought could impel

DEUIDIC SOUBCE OF BELIEF 77

A primitive people to f oice a human corpae into such an unnatural poeition^ as cramping the knees up to the chin. '^ They wished, when intrusting a body to the earthy to show that they were replacing it in the womb of mankind's xmiversal mother, there to await a new birth at the resurrection."

Could we persuade ourselves, in the first place, that a savage and aboriginal race had so far antici- pated the discovery of future ages and become so well acquainted with the physiology of the human body and the science of obstetrics, as to have known the exact position which the foetus maintained in the generative womb, we might still hesitate to accept this interpretation because we nowhere else find so early in the history of mankind an intimation of the possible resurrection of the human body. It is even doubted by recent archffiologiBts that the Egyp- tians held the notion that the body itself would be resurrected, notwithstanding it has been so long supposed by scholars that that was the real pur- poee of embalming the dead* The notion of resur- rection was somehow read into the Egyptian rite of embalming by biased commentators and accepted by the uncritical pubBc Herodotus tells us ^^ The ijgyptians say the soul, on the dissolution of the body, aluxiyM enters into some other animal then bom, and having passed in rotation through the various terrestrial, aquatic, and aerial beings, again enters the body of a man then bom." Here we see no intimation that the individual body of the de- oeased was preserved so that the same body could once more become the tabemade of the same 'soul

78 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

it onoe entertained. In fact, the proceas of em* balming made this impoBsible, for the bodj was by no means preserved intact '' It is absurd to at- tribute, without clear cause, to an enlightened peo- ple the belief that these stacks of brainless, eviscer- ated mummies, dried and shrunken in ovens, coated with pitch, bound up in a hundredfold bandages, would ever revive, and, inhabited by the same souls that fled them thirty centuries before, again walk the streets of Thebes I '' ^

The explosion of this once universal interpreta- tion of an Egyptian custom but shows how easy it is to attribute a foreign motive to a national usage when it is approached by a theological bias. If, then, the idea of the resurrection had not yet sug- gested itself to a people so advanced and so far along in the ages as the highly intellectual votaries of Isis and Osiris, it would call for a needless strain of logical assumption to insist that because the tribes of the Stone Age entombed their dead with their knees up to their chins they had even then somdiow come to believe in the resurrection of the body.

Is it not far more reasonable to assume that they maintained this suggestive custom because to their puerile and imaginative minds the deceased did not seem to have absolutely departed the realm of the real and actual life ? Their shadows followed them to the grave and hovered round to receive the sacri- fice and prayers of those who remained to honor them. They were not dead to them as the dead

1 See Dr. Alger's " History of the Doctrine of Immortality."

DKUBDIC SOUKCE OF BELIEF 79

seem to us. They still participated in their wars and banquets^ their domestic loves and quarrels, the same as though they had not become physically un- approachable. Hence they gave them food to eat, the implements of war with which to fight, animals on which to thrive, and even wives with whom to cohabit on the shadowy couch of love.

All this is proved by the discoveries of imple- ments in the graves which have been opened, and even in the legends which still linger from olden times. Was it not necessary, to do just honor to Achilles, that Polyzena be slain and given to him to wive in his gloomy glory beyond the grave 1

•Why, then, with such a vivid belief as to their dead, should they plant their bodies supinely in the stately tombs they had prepared for themt Those noble warriors did not lie in lowly attitudes when alive and active, neither should they in their graves. Hence originally they put them in the po- sitions they might assume at the table in banquet halls amid the wild wassails of rude hilarity.

If we must speculate at all concerning such a usage, certainly the latter interpretation would seem to be more natural and logical than that strange supposition that this crude community of savages had leaped across the ages and by centuries antici- pated the refined conceptions of later religions.

I have dwelt upon what I call a biased misinter- pretation of an ancient custom to this length merely to point out how cautious we must be if we would trace the actual beginnings of religious usages and to hold our eyes firmly on the proposition that in

80 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

hmnan development all ideas have oome along nat- ural lines and can anticipate no experience till it haa found its due place in history.

We are told that the Druids, a very ancient and mysterious people, were inculcated with profound and vivid notions concerning the immortal life, and perhaps exceeded all later peoples in the sincerity and earnestness with which they embraced the doc- trine. We may well believe this when we learn that their faith was so absolute they were willing to loan money on promissory notes to be liquidated by their resurrected bodies. This item in their faith would seem to discount even the fanatic enthusiasm of modern Milleritism or the anticipated glory of the end of the world among the first disciples of Jesus.

Numerous authorities present us with a view of Druidic religion so profound and philosophic in its character that we are at once compelled to believe it is not primitive, but derivative, in its essence. In fact, not an author but admits that the Druids were a wandering people originally, who, ere they planted themselves in Gaul, Scandinavia and Briton, had rubbed shoulders with the Orientals, and had in- deed thoroughly imbibed all the teachings of Py- thagoras and the Brahmans. They taught that each life begins in the lowliest natures, but slowly ascends through seonic evolutions ever to higher forms of expression and experiaice. That when the one life which pervades all reaches the human expression it is possessed of self-will and may of its own exertion ascend from the basest forms of the ethical life to the knowledge and aspiration of the saints. That

DRUIDIC SOURCE OF BELIEF 81

e^en though a soul sink so low it is forced into the deeper darkness, it is never lost, but ever forges on its probationary path, even for millions of years, till it attains the culmination of divine conscious- ness and absolute union with the Eternal Principle. They taught not only the unity of life, but the unity of Ood. When the ultimate attainment of nirvanic peace is reached the ego which has traversed through its myriad lives comes into its perfect memory of all experiences and sees as in a glass the perfect re- flection of its seonic evolutions.

Certainly one cannot think that so advanced a conception could have come spontaneously among a primitive people, and the fact that there is such ab- solute correspondence between this philosophy and that of the Pythagoreans and Orientals is sufficiently convincing as to its source.

Sut this origin is not satisfactory. For it is apparent that, while the Druids entertained the re- fined philosophy which we have very briefly out- lined, there was parallel with it another system of worship and sacrifice which is suggestive of more primitive origin, and which calls for our consid- eration if we are to learn to what extent the primi- tive mind of man suggested to him the soul's exist- ence and its possible future.

We find they worshipped at the cromlechs or dol- mens, a relic of the Stone Age. That they held the oak trees in special favor as tutelary protectors and souroes of inspiration ; that the mistletoe was also held in especial veneration; that they worshipped the snake, or at least utilized it in some of their

82 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

ceremoniefl, and that thej built large rings of stones 80 ingeniously arranged that thej were perfectly balanced and would bow without falling. Such Tites could hardly be said to be consonant with the lofty philosophy above referred to^ and call for fur- ther investigation. It must be that the later Druids overlaid an aboriginal form of worship which they ^ound among the natives, and ingeniously interwove them, creating a system of religious rites curiously inconsistent yet bewildering in majesty and pandeur.

If, then, we wish to learn to what extent the prim- itive mind conceived of the principle of immortal- ity we must not study the more recent religion and philosophy which their priests of white inculcated, but we must examine the nature and origin of the aboriginal beliefs and rites, which this later cult apparently absorbed and merged in itself.

The fact that they adored the tree and the snake places them in line with the whole order of primi- tive people whose religion was constructed along purely natural experiences. We find the tree, as the Igdrasyll tree of Scandinavia, the tree of Knowl- edge in the Garden of Eden, the tree of Ashtaroth -worship, and an infinite variation of this early cult, scattered among all the primitive folk. With it, too, is always associated the worship of the snake and afterward the river and sea, as symbolical rep- resentations of serpentine sinuations.

The element of the tree worship undoubtedly evinces the aboriginal origin of the Druidical wor- ship ; for it is easily traced through the entire Scan-

DRUIDIC SOURCE OF BELIEF 88

mythology. It is Odhinn who with his two brothers goes forth throughout the world to find Adc and Embla, the ash and the elnu Finding theee stocks void of life, they breathed into them the living spirit and from their bosom sprung the human race. JJ^aturally, from this conception sprung the notion that the trees were the custodians of human souls, and only as men prayed and sac- rificed beneath them would the gods be favorable. Thus in all ages the trees have come to be thought almost sacred by humanity. The village tree of the Germans was originally a tribal tree, with which the entire life of the community was vitally asso- eiated«

Here, then, we are to look for the origin of the soul's conception among the Druids, who, worship- ping the tree, speedily conceived that not only was it the custodian of human souls, but possessed its own souL Their poetical fancy soon led them to conceive that the mistletoe, which sprung not from the earth, but apparently from the bosom of the sacred oak, was especially reverential because thus sanctified. The mistletoe was the oak's offspring, child of its soul, spirit of its spirit Thus was hu* manity symbolized, for as all mankind sprung from the trees, they possessed the spirit of the trees and were thus themselves spiritualized by the grove's divinities. From this simple source came gradually all the poetic symbolism of runes and rites among these magic-serving mystics. The groves were man's primeval temples from which first he derived his inspirations. fTor need we wonder.

84 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

^ For hifl dmple heart Might not resist the sacred influences Which, from the stilly twilight of the place. And from the grey old tnmks that hig^ in heaven Mingled with their mossy boughs, and from the sound Of the invisible breath that swayed at onoe All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed His spirit with the thoughts of boundless power And inaccessible majesty I ''

AU the origins of human belief are fascinating, but bewildering. We are too much, doubtless, inclined to read our own philosophy and reasoning into the rude mind of the savage, who pursues his ovm im- pulses, spurred with but slight reflection. We can- not discern in these early usages more than the natr ural wanderings of the imagination among the many experiences which the mind encounters in contact vnth nature. Certainly on such fancies science can postulate no conclusion or principle which is so far-reaching in its nature as the con- cepticm of the soul's existence and immortality.

If these early racial experiences afFord any in* timations of the refined conception of the soul which in later ages enthralled the race with awe and adoration, it can be in nothing more than pro- phetic adumbrations which vaguely indicate what some time in the ages came to be a vivid and inspire ing realization* Whatever there may be, then, of the i^losophy of the survival of the dead among the Dmidic and forest worshippersy it cannot be

DRUrOIC SOURCE OF BELIEF 85

said to be other than a reflection of their aaaoda- tioEi with natare'a prolific growths and in no sense an innate inspiration springiiig spontaneons from the untutored mind.

CHAPTER VII

ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN SOURCES OF

BELIEF

We shaU be justified, I think, in reaching a simi- lar condusion concerning both the Assyrian and Egyptian religions, both of which, howbeit they were already old when civilization b^an, are so replete with conceptions of the soul's existence and immortality as to make it appear that such notions must have come to them by way of supernatural in- spiration or from the deeper springs of the spirit.

It might be truthfully said that the contempla- tion of the soul's career among those ancient people was more solemn and serious than among any of the people of the earth at any time since history began. It is no exaggeration to declare that the realization of the soul's existence was much more vivid among them than among the disciples of Christ during his career or at any time subsequent It entered into every relation, custom and experience of the entire nation ; it constituted a material portion of the law of the land ; it was almost the constant substance of conversation and the very basis of the barter of commerce. Indeed, the other-world-life was more real to them than the world in which they actually existed. The gods were so common and numerous that, as Petronius says, ^^ The country is so thickly peopled with divinities, it is easier to find a god than a man/'

ASSYEIAN AND EGYPTIAN BEUEFS 87

Out of the bewildering confusion of ceremony and usage which the Egyptian pursued in his daily^ rounds we may briefly outline the conception of the soul's travellings and transmigrations. They* represented the universe, according to Eusebius, by^ two circles, one within the other, over both of them resting the head of a hawk around which twined the coils of a serpent; intending by this repre-^ sentation to symbolize three spheres, earth, sky and spirit, or birth, life and eternity.

At death the soul descended in the west to> Amenthe, where it was duly tried. If condemned it was sent back to earth or confined below for pun- ishment If justified it joined the company of the Blissful Sun God and went on its journey to sail

** O'er the skyey sea In ark of crystal, manned by beamy gods. To drag the deeps of space and net the stars, Where, in their nebulous shoals, they shore the void And through old Nighf s Typhonian blindness shine.. Then, solarized, he press'd towards the sun. And, in the heavenly Hades, hall of God, Had final welcome of the firmament."

Undoubtedly presenting the most resplendent and colorful ceremony which any system of worship ever cultivated, the Egyptian religion is at once the con- summation of man's proudest philosophy and of hia profoundest folly. Because £bey saw the soul in everything, more vivid to them than the flesh which they encountered, they could not refrain from wor- shipping almost every form of life which they be-

88 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

held. No beaBt was too base, no bird so beautiful, but what thej associated with it the most vitalistic conceptions^ apotheosizing it with the halo of a deity.

Diodorus reminds us of their strange custom of worshipping even the cats in the household, and comicallj narrates a ridiculous riot that occurred at the time that the Roman arms had mastered the city, when a soldier had ruthlessly trampled on one of those domestic pets. Commonly it has been sup- posed that these curious people performed such won- drous rites over the living and dead bodies of the an- imals that lived in their clime, because they were convinced they had souls, and these were indeed im- mortal. ^^The adoration and worship of Beasts among the Egyptians,^' says Diodorus, ^^ seems justly to many a most strange and unaccountable thing, and worthy inquiry ; for they worship some creatures even above measure, when they are dead as well as when they are living; as Cats, Ichneu- mons, Dogs, Kites, the bird Ibis, Wolves, and Croc- odiles, and many other such like.''

He informs us of the extraordinary expense and care to which the priests put themselves when pro- viding for the living animal, and the even still more extravagant labor to which they went in observing the obsequies of the sacred animals. He says no similar worship was to be found among any of the ancient people.

Judged by these obsequies, either the Egyptians were the most foolish and idiotic of all people, or

ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN BELIEFS 89

thej discerned some secret in nature of which hu- manity is not commonly possessed. Diodorus pre- sents several reasons for the worship of the beasts which he says were prevalent among the Egyptians, but makes the suggestive statement that the priests claimed to have a secret reason which they would not divulge to the laity.

Evidently in some way all these ceremonies point to some occult relation^ or conception of some com- mon derivation, between men and beasts, which is not apparent, but must be deduced from concom- itant circumstances.

Diodorus hints of one alleged reason for the wor- ship of the beasts, which, he says, is the most com- monly current of any, yet to his mind the least plausible of aU ; that was ^' that the first gods were so few, and men so many above their number, and so vfricked and impious, Ihat th^ were too weak for them, and therefore transformed themselves into beasts, and by that means avoided their assaults and cruelty. But afterwards they say that the kings and princes of the earth (in gratitude to them for the first authors of their well-being) directed how carefully those creatures whose shapes they had assumed should be fed while they were alive, and how they were to be buried when they were dead/' From such reverential devotion to the beasts the people in time came to attribute to them the quality of divinity which originally inhered in their divine authors.

» MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITY

In this fable we disoem a faint hint of that prev* alent noticm in all antiquity (hinted at in the Bible story of Adam naming all the beasts that God com- manded to walk before him), namely, that in some mysterious manner human beings descended from the loins of the animals and thus are spiritually akin. Just as the tree worshippers, as we have seen, adored them, because they believed mankind sprung from their bosoms, so the beast-worshippers honored and worshipped the birds, reptiles and quadrupeds of their climes, believing that they were their progenitors.

What notion of the souls of men or animals^ therefore, these ancients entertained, it is plain to see it came to them directly from their association and experience with animate nature. It may be said that they were one grade above the Druids be- cause they adored semi-intelligent animation, while the latter saw the glory of the world in the voiceless- and brainless forms of the vegetal kingdom.

But Egyptologists have now almost universally reached the conclusion that the worship of Apis (the sacred bull) was closely associated with the adora- tion of Osiris, which has such evident marks of the solar-myth that the entire origin of the religious rites of those people may be referred directly to- their observation of the sun and the stellar con- steUations. Possibly the tenets of all religions, but reflect man's observations of the heavenly bodies.

This is not, of course, the place to enter into a. detailed discussion of such an interesting theme, and

ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN BELIEFS 91

is merely mentioned to observe that again we dis- cern the naturalistic origin of man's beUef in the character and history of the soul (whether animal or hiunan) and the glory of its immortality.

CHAPTEE Vni

ASSTRIO-BABTLONIAN SOURCES OF

BELIEF

We shall find that the origin of the AssTrio-Baby- Ionian religion and its declaration of the doctrine of immortality is to be attributed to the same source. The dream of the after life in that religion was full of gloom and sombreness even when it related to heaven no less than helL For they believed most vividly in both of these localities. We discern in the Babylonian religion the immediate source of much that is to be found among the Semitic peoples, especially the Hebrews, although, as we shall soon learn, the perception of the soul as a distinct entity and possessed of a life after death was but very vaguely conceived by these latter people.

According to the most recent discoveries of the Assyriologists, it is very evident that the entire Bab- ylonian cult was a system of nature-worship, ar more especially, as shown by Gk>dfrey Higgins in his ^^ Anacalyptus," many years ago, a solar cult, from which emanated all the varying forms of re- ligion that have since pervaded the earth.

The sombreness of the Babylonian view of death was even more oppressive than that of the Egyp- tians. An appalling sense of fear overcame the novitiate who glanced at the possibilities of nugra- tion beyond the grave, within whose deeps nau^t but gloom and terror prevailed.

ASSYRIOBABTLONIAN BELIEFS 93

^ Izdubar wept o'er EaF^bani, his friend ;

In sorrow he laid himself down in the field; * I will not die like Ea-bani,

Orief has entered my soul.

I am afraid of deaths

And lay me down in the field/''

Finding as we do in the Assyrio-Babylonian legends the entire tradition of the Genesis stories of the Bible, we may easily discover the origin of the Hebrew notions of death which were so prevalent in the early Mosaic period. Howbeit, through the many inflnences that overcame Jewish thought be- cause of the migrations of the people and their min- gling with many civilizations, they materially al- tered their primal notions of death, nevertheless it is very evident their first conceptions were gloomy and appalling. Job can discover nothing but profound- est darkness in the regions of the woe-crowned King of Terrors, and stands aghast at the contemplation of the unutterable darkness that surrounds him. '^ I go whence I shall not return, even the land of darkness, and the shadow of death ; a land of dark- ness, as of darkness itself; and of the shadow of deatli, without any order and where the light is as darkness/* How similar this seems in conception to that grim opening in the Babylonian account of Ishtar's descent into Hades :

^ To the land of no return, to the land . . • Ishtar the daughter of Sin inclined her ear. To the house of darkness, the dwelling of Irkalla, To the house which none who enter ever return

94 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

To the road whose course does not torn back.

To the house in which he who enters is deprived of

light Where dust is their nature and mud their food. They see not light> they dwell in darkness.''

Beoognizing in these songs the tendency of all the primitive people of earth to portray in poetic im- agery their obeervation of the workings of nature, it requires but slight investigation to discover the true origin of all these conceptions of death, and the dim foreglimpses of the after life which they en- tartained.

Ishtar, the great goddess of Sin, representing hu- man life, descends in the depths of darkness from which she is able to return only through the guid- ance of the god of light. As Ishtar descends she protests at the treatment she receives. '^ Why, O porter, dost thou take the great crown from my head?" she expostulates; and the gallant porter responds, '^ Enter, O Lady, for these are the com- mands of the mistress of the world." She ccm- stantly remonstrates, by each gate they approach, at her being dismantled of all her ornaments and shorn of her glory. Then when the hapless " Lady " comes before the affrighting goddess of the under-world, Allatu, she commands that Ishtar's now inglorious body shall be smitten through and through with vile disease and mortification. Yet, while she is detained, in the under-world, as if in revenge, the fruitful god of earth grows impotent, and life wholly stops on the surface of the globe.

Beautiful as the poetry is, and doubtless quite

ASSTRIOBABYLONIAN BELIEFS 95

illusive, one can discern through the maze of im- agery the simple observation of the labors of the sun, and his pathetic descent into the Cimmerian dark- ness beycmd the clond-wrapped western sea. This conception beginning at the very dawn of human thought, wends its varying way through all the an- cient religions till we find it reaching its climax of beauty and symbolism in the story of Odysseus and his strange wanderings to the land of the Cim- merians.

However, though these first conceptions of death are full of horror and reflect but the gloom of the nether darkness, they are soon lit up with a faint ray of hope that softens the oppressive tragedy. Dimly they perceive that they who depart into the land "from which there is no return" may in- deed come once more among the glories which per- vade the earth when again the King of Day reigns supreme.

The meaning of the myth is clearly told in the following words of C. P. Tiele: " The story of Ish- tar's descent into Hades is unmistakably a nature myth which describes in picturesque fashion her de- scent into the under-world to seek the springs of the living water, probably the central force of light and heat in the world. When she is imprisoned there by AUatu, the goddess of death and the shadow world, and even visited with all sorts of diseases, all growth and generation stand still in the world, so that the gods take council and decide to demand her release. Each accordingly creates a wonderful be- ing, a kind of priest, called ^ his light shineth,' who

96 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

is to seek out the fountain of life, and whom Allatu cannot withstand, however much she may scold and curse. The goddess is set free, returns to the up- per world and brings her dead lover Tammuz back to life by sprinkling him with the water of immor- tality."

If we are to insist, as many do, that the instinct of the after life is so strong and persistent in the human breast it can be accounted for only on the assumption that it is innate and therefore absolute in nature, we may be easily misled, because of our disregard of the naturalistic origin of the belief. Thus far it has been without much difficulty traced to the nature-myth, or the poetic apotheosis of the world, and especially the sun and the stellar globes. If it shall finally be discovered that all religions have more or less merged and nothing has come down to the later cults that did not primarily exist in the originals, then the force of this interpretation will be greatly weakened, and we shall be compelled to conclude that what is now called a belief in the after life is but a psychological survival of primitive notions which slowly developed in the human mind and sprung from unciviUzed man's contemplation of natural phenomena.

There is now no doubt that a path of communi- cation existed between the most ancient of religions, that the Babylonians and Egyptians were the spring from which flowed all the early beliefs and notions of man's first religions, and that, too, what attained such high and philosophic altitudes of thought in the later Jewish and Christian faiths was none other

ASSYEIOBABYLONIAN BELIEFS »7

than what primarily found its origin in these early dreama of the human race.

It is well known, for instance, that the entire re- ligion of the Jews, so far as it relates to God and immortaUty, is the immediate offspring of the Per- sian or Zoroastrian religion* Kow, if we read the description of late and refined presentations of that faith we shall find it full of ethical grandeur and poetic beauty. It is surcharged with a vital con- ception of immortality, as an essential of the ethical Iife> and accepted as an unquestionable article of belief. Accepting a very reo^it statement, and one which is undoubtedly authentic as to the modem ideas entertained by the Parsees, presented by Mr. Jinandii Modhi at the Chicago Beligious Confer- ence, we shall perhaps little suspect that it can be traced in its every feature directly to the primal na- ture-myth, to which we have frequently referred. He says : '^ The Avesta, as well as earlier Peblvi writings, attach first-rate importance to the ques- tion of the soul's immortality, because the dogma appears io he morally requisite. Mazdaeisn incul- cates a belief in heaven and hell. Between heaven and the future world it places a bridge named Chine- vat According to our faith, the soul of man wan- ders for three days over the face of the earth under the guidance of the angel Serosch. ... At nightfall on the third day the souls of the dead come to the bridge of Chinevat, watched by Meher the judge, etc. After the soul is judged 'The good which it has done hinders it from going to hell and the evil from going to heaven.' '^

98 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

The primary basis of the Parsee faith is the dual doctrine of Ormuzd and Ahriman; the opposing powers of light and darkness ; or of good and eviL However, as the religion developed beyond its earlier stages it reached a spiritual improvement which ma- terially modified the ancient dualistic doctrine and led to a belief in a monotheistic or supreme Deity. A general resurrection was contemplated at which all the dead would once again arise, nothing being lost from the great host of the living who had once inhabited the earth. The entire cult attains at last a lofty ethical and spiritual altitude that rivals, if indeed it does not overtop, any of the modem re- ligions of mankind. For on the one hand it avoids the crass materialism of early Jewish faith, which almost entirely lost sight of the glimpse of immor- tality it had imbibed from surrounding religions, and on the other the unethical and demoralizing dogmatism of the Christian faith relating to hell and the everlasting destruction of the larger part ef the race whom God had created, apparently for the purpose of condemning.

Can, then, even this refined and much glorified religion be traced to the primitive nature-myth and solar cult, or is it an exception among the religions of the world ? "In the deep background of the Magian theology," says Alger, " looms in mysteri- ous obscurity the belief in an infinite First Prin- ciple, Zeruana Akerana." This idea entering so vaguely into the original Parsee faith is undoubt- edly borrowed, as Spiegel insists, " From Babylon and added to the system at a later period than the

ASSTBIOBABTLONIAN BELIEFS 99

other doctrines." • • • '^ The banning of the yital theology, the source of actual ethics to the ZoroastrianSy was in the idea of two antagonistic powers, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the first emanations of Zeruana, who divide between them in unresting strife the empire of the universe." Now, running through the entire polemics relative to the much dis- puted nature of these two gods there prevails the suggestive interpretation that originally Ahriman was not essentially evil, but like Ormuzd, and became evil only after his fall or descent '^ First the per- fect Zeruana was once all in all ; Ahriman as well rs Ormuzd proceed from him ; and the inference that he was pure would seem to belong to the idea of his origin." This seems to be the final conclusion to which the historians have arrived, as we learn in the language of Both, ^'Ahriman was originally good; his fall a determination of his will, not an inherent necessity of his nature."

Very clearly, then, do we discern the source of this beautiful and poetic religion, and easily can we trace it to the far dawn of human history.

First let us observe that it is founded on the no- tion of "emanations" — ^the abstraction of indi- vidual gods or powers from one primary central deity or essence. This conception of the emana- tions ran through the ancient religions and reached its climax of imagery and symbolism in the Kabala of the Semites and the theosophy of the Gentile faiths. Forbes, quoted in the " Anacalyptus," says : " The opinion of the soul being an emana- tion of the divinity (the universal soul), which is

100 MODEHN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITT

believed by the HindooB, and was professed by the Greeks, seems likewise to have been adopted by the early Christians. • • • Saint Justin says: ^ The soul is inoorraptible because it etnanates from God ; and his disciples, Tatianus, the Assyrian, ob- observes that man having received a portion of the divinity, is immortal as Ghxi. Such was the system of the ancient philosophers, Pythagoreans, Brach- mans, and some sects of the Christians.' ''

Now, nothing stands forth more prominently among all the ancient religions than the supremacy of life. Seeing the earth teeming with living crea- tures, and observing that notwithstanding death was universal, life was ultimately triumphant, the idea grew in the mind of man that life itself was an indestructible principle in nature, thus indeed by way of the imagination anticipating some of the most startling conclusions of modern science.

Hence, the organ of generation, no less that of the female than of the male, became the vast and universal symbol of all the most ancient cults. The " bull *' is universally symbolized in the primary re- ligions as a worshipful deity, being the strongest and most prolific source of life. ^^ The bull, the de- monstrative and figurative sign following his (Apis) name is accompanied by the crux amata, or emblem of life." Apis the sacred Bull in the Egyptian re- ligion is often identified with Osiris, and both stand as emblematic of life, the one of earthly and the other of universal life.

" Of all the different attributes of the Creator, or faculties conferred on him by his creatures, there

ASSTRIOBABTLONIAN BEUEFS 101

18 no one so striking or so interesting to a r^eeting person as that of the generative power. This is the most incomparable and mysterious of the powers of nature. When all the adjuncts or accidents of every kind so interesting to the feelings and pas* sions of man are considered, it is not wonderful that this subject should be found in some way or other to have a place among the first of human supersti- tions," says Higgins.

Once their minds were centred on the enigma of the abundant and prolific generative force of nature, it was but natural that they should divine in some way the origin from which it derived its boundless energy. Observing that nature herself seemed to pursue the very manner of the animal world in re- production, that no sooner did a body expire than speedily it seemed to be restored in a similar if not identical form, the idea occurred that there was not, indeed, any such thing as death, and that what seemed to die really persisted in some way to live. Hence the notion of immortality suggested itself very early to the untutored mind of man.

But they also perceived that the fullness of life was variable with the motions of the sun ; that when the summer solstice was present, life had reached its climax on earth, and in the vernal months when the sun was yet young and modest, life was big with promise. They also noticed that when the sun de- scended to his sleep for the night the force of life seemed partially to subside with him, and if for many days he withheld his glory from the earth and the waters of the heavens too freely flooded the

102 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

globe, life speedily faltered and decayed; while in the oppressive period of the winter months life indeed wholly vanished only to return again at the advent of the springtime, when the sun once more returned to the central heavens.

Always full of imagination and poetry, as is the mind of a child, the juvenile mind of the primitive races followed the path of the imagination and at once read into the sun the story of the Creator's power and attributed to him the origin and sus* tenance of all life.

I found a similar belief among the Indians of the Northwest relating to a great mountain which they have always worshipped as the source of life, because its melting waters in the spring feed the soils and restore the life that had decayed in the wintertime. I elsewhere framed the idea in a son- net and reproduce it here to illustrate the disposi- tion of the inhabitants of the primeval plains to wor- ship whatever seems to be the source of earthly and human life :

^ Hail, Mother Mount, mysterious, merciful. Whose white breast bulges from the swelling earth, Seviving rivulets from winter's dearth, To feed the soils, whose cry most pitiful,

' We thirst,' thou hear'st I Thy melting bosom, full Of sorrow for them, tugging at thy girth Of snowy udders like sucklings after birth. Doth freely flow and say ^ My lambkins drink 1 '

^ 0, thee, Qreat Nourisher, we worship all ; And as the envious sun, behind the brink

ASSYEIO-BABYLONIAN BEUEFS 108

Of crystal brightness sinking, crowns thy tall, Imperions brow with gold, we sometimes think A god appears, whose glory doth forestall A vision of that world from which we shrink/' ^

Thus we see how uniquely yet perfectly the young mind of the race, foUowing merely the palpable in- timations of nature, had so well anticipated the actual discoveries and deductions of modem science.

But having become so affectionately observant of the career and labors of the siui, it followed at onoe that legends and superstitions relating to him speed- ily found their place in the mythology of those periods. Hence when the sun reigned in heaven he was the god of goodness, he brought plenty and power to the earth, he was the source of life and productivity. But when he descended, that ia^ when he fell into the realm of darkness, he entered into the abode of death, from which at first it was doubted whether he could return. Then he is the evil god ; — for in the absence of the god of li^l^ all the diseases which were said to have overtaken Ishtar are brought upon the earth, the fields and the cattle of the plains. Here we behold the first adumbration of the faith in Ormuzd and Ahriman^ and the glimmering discernment of the after life and the resurrection. Here, too, we perceive the basis of the first vague and mysterious belief of man in a single Grod or Supreme Principle, from which all souls and spirits emanated. For was not the Sun primarily alone and supreme in the

1 Originally printed hi ** Chipe," N. Y., Nov., 1896.

104 MODEKN LIGHT ON mMORTALITT

heavens, and so first contemplated as the highest among the Mighty and the Holy of the Holies {

'Not nntil he fell (descended into darkness) was he discrowned and hehdd as the god of gloom and the king of terrors.

Out of these simple beginnings have come all the splendors, ceremonies and theologies of the religions of the world. And therefore, once more> even in a religion as beautiful and ethically refined as that of the Zoroastrian Parsees, not to speak of Mosaism, we see the naturalistic origin of the belief in the immortality of the human soul along with all the other associated doctrines of religious faith.

CHAPTEB IX

EVOIUTION OF GRECIAN BELIEF IN

AFTEELIFE

When we come to face the doctrine of immortal- ity as presented in Grecian philosophical thought we Terge so doselj on the Christian conception that the line of demarcation is very difficult. We find first, in the scheme of Socrates and Plato, the Supreme One Mind, source and sustainer of all existence, from which emanates every distinctive individual soul whose history is forever related to it.

Without a doubt the Oriental theme of reincar- nation or metempsychosis is deeply involved so that the higher philosophy of Athens does not make very clear to us the exact history of the soul beyond the grave, nevertheless the notion that the soul does con- tinue its existence is stated without prevarication. Jowett reminds us, however, that " Probably the be- lief in the individuaUty of the soul after death had but a feeble hold on the Greek mind. Like the per- sonality of God, the personality of man in a future state was not inseparately bound up with the reality of existence.'' The poetic quality of the Grecian mind, especially the Hellenic, compelled it to dis- cern rather the symbol and figurement of some ar- cane principle of nature in every phenomenon and feature of the world than to detect a personified entity who as supreme author stood apart from it aU. Their conception was comprehensive and log-

105

106 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

ical rather than impressionable and personal Hence they insisted not so much on a specific per- sonality from whom all things came and to whom they are directly responsible and shall return^ as they did upon an all-involving principle which was at once the pleroma and womby all-containing and self-generating: that in which all things live and- move and have their beings and to which they at length retnm ; symbolized in ancient mythology by the encircling sea.

In the latter days of Greek philosophy the doc- trine of human immortality was proved by a par- tially inductive method of reasonings Plato having been perhaps the first mortal who anticipated Bacon in his great revolutionary system of dialectics. For many ages preceding the age of Socrates the doctrine of immortality was popularly accepted^ but the no- tion which it conveyed to the mind was mythical, in- distinct and primitive. At this time the old Ho- meric notion of gibbering ghosts hanging round the tomb and overseeing their incineration, complain- ing if the ceremonies were not properly completed ; the aristocratic conception that only the chiefs and epochally illustrious would enjoy the isles of the blest; that on the one hand Elysium awaited the soul and on the other Tartarus, between which the uncertain spirit would flit through varying circum- stances ; that, as Hesiod taught, a few of the noblest and most righteous spirits of the earth had become guardian angels or tutelary gods ; all these notions in the Socratic age had effectually vanished and in their stead the cultured Greeks were inculcated with

EVOLUTION OF GRECIAN BELIEF 107

a philosophy that verged much doeer on more re- cent conceptions.

In the system of Plato that philosoj^y had per- haps reached its completest and most logical expres- sion. Heading the possibilities and prophecy of Nature in the experience of the human soul, he de- duces from it the existence of a Supreme Being, and the consequent immortality of the soul which is in essence and nature its offspring and dependent* If the infinite and universal principle is eternal and indestructible, so is the soul that emanates from it. He discerns that every human action is preceded by a prompting thought; that each thought springs from an idea; that the sum total of human action and character is the effect of certain controlling archetypal ^^ ideas '' which he believes to be inde- structible, divine and eternal.

Socrates, as interpreted by Plato, saw that un- derneath the changing mental phenomena of human experience there lay an unchanging, permanent and controlling principle, which he called the principle of tJ^ Identical, the rational element of the soul, which constituted the principle of its activity and self-determination (Crocker). This principle he calls the immortal part of the soul; it is the resi- dence of man's personal intelligence^ very part and essence of the Divine Intelligence that pervades the world. As that is indestructible, unchanging and indivisible, so is the rational or intelligent principle of the soul.

But the soul has also a lesser, lower, divisible and changeable part, which brings it into immediate re-

108 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

lation with the visible world and is the residence of the body's actions and deeds which calminate in human character. These two departments are not wholly separated as the heaven and the earthy or as a continent divided by a stream of water^ or as Tar- tarus and Elysium. There exists still another di- vision or section of the soul which constitutes its intermediary principle, the plane of the conscious energy of the soul acting within the sphere of earthly existence. Here we discern a clear adumbration of Paul's triune composition of the human being, as spirit, soul and body.

We thus see the soul attached on the one hand to the divine and eternal Principle, and on the other to the transitory and perishable world of objective phenomena. On one side it might be said to be an unconditioned, immediate and direct associate of the Supreme Being, and on the other a dependent, contingent and transitory phase of its expression. Its divine or rational element is indestructible and immortal ; its human or earthly expression, the em- bodiment of bodily and objective experience, is mortal, personal, and corruptible.

The pure, abstract soul stands apart from all in- vasion and corruption by the mortal elements. As shown in the tenth book of the Republic, there is in everything an element of good and an element of evil which constitutes the salvation and destruction of everything. "All things have their own cor- rupting element, and that which is undestroyed by this is indestructible. The soul has her own cor- rupting principles, which are injustice, intemper-

EVOLUTION OF GEECIAN BELIEF 109

ance, cowardice, and the like. But none of these destroy the soul in the same sense that disease de- stroys the body. The sotd may be full of all iniqui- ties, but is not by reason of them all brought any nearer death. For nothing ever perished by an external affection of evil, which was not destroyed from within. The body, which is one thing, cannot be destroyed by food which is another thing ; neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the body, which is another thing."

The entire object of the trial of existence is the liberation of the pure soul from conscious contact with the corrupting body, or element of death. The Eternal Principle pervading the organs of the body affects the presence of the incorruptible soul that dwells within it. As this principle is divine and indestructible, so is the consequent soul. But the fact that this soul is imprisoned in the body and cannot therefore freely and imconquerably express itself makes it necessary for the spirit to pass through nameless experiences and embodiments that the elements of evil and corruption be fully ex- purgated and the free soul at length enjoy the exer- cise of its unhampered power. The liberation and exaltation of the eternal individual Ego is then the purpose and meaning of all life's experiences. In the emergence and triumph of this Ego consists the glory of life, the culmination of existence. At first in the Socratic conception the absolute purity of the soul and authority of the ruling ** ideas " was the emphasis and fullness of its philosophy. That the primal soul was of the essence and incorruptibility

110 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

of the divine nature and would ultimately evolve its divine and supernal consciousness was the burden and message of the nobler philosophy of later Greece.

In the eyes of Socrates, voiced on the lips of Plato, the beautiful, the harmonious, the good and the true, are eternal verities, in whose embodiment the soul is encased. Are not the many beautiful things, whether horses or garments or any other things which may be called beautiful, are they not forever changing? May they not indeed be de- scribed as always changing, he asks of Cebes, and hardly ever the same either with themselves or with any other? The things, which are ever changing and dissolving are the things that can be seen (Paul's ^^ temporal things '')• But he insists that there is within all these changing forms, phases and attributes, a changeless somewhat on which they all depend and which can never be seen. The things that are not seen are eternal, as Paul afterwards also declared. The soul, then, when she employs the body as the instrument of perception and sensa- tion by which she permits herself to become ac- quainted with the world, is thus dragged down, flurried and confused. She does not maintain her rational bearing and her noble poise; the world spins round her and she is like a drunken man when under their influence.

But when she returns to herself, like a drunken man after a restorative sleep, to continue the fig- ure, she comes to herself ; she reflects ; she rises then into her native realm of purity, eternity, divinity

EVOLUTION OF GBEOIAN BELIEP 111

and immortality ; she discerns herself as nnchange- able, immobile, incorruptible and kindred with the gods; she ceases from her erring ways and, again associating with the nnchangeable, she herself is again tinchanging.

This is the startling figure which Plato uses in the Phaedo by which he intends to exemplify the innate purity and incorruptible excellence of the essential spirit, or soul of man. But the future state of that same soul is still vague and indefinite in the mind of Socrates, as reported by Plato, even on his dying bed. He cannot bring himself to believe that, as some thought, it could be blown away into its original elements instantly after death has liberated it, seeing that even the body itself does not instantly and at once didsolve after it has departed from life; even indeed remaining out- wardly intact for many centuries if it is properly embalmed as once by the ancient Egyptians.

He insists that the soul itself, which is absolutely pure, draws with it after its release from the oor* mpt body none of its vitiating taints, for its asso- ciation with the body was voluntary, and she as voluntarily once more withdraws from the body and practices the philosophical art of dying easily.

'^The soul I say herself invisible departs to the in- visible world — to the divine and immortal and ra- tional: thither arriving she lives in bliss and is re- leased from the folly of men, their fears and wild passions and all other human ills, and forever dwells as they say of the initiated, in company with the gods.''

112 MODERN LIGHT ON mMORTALITCT

Thifl conception at first ruled the Socratio theory of beings and all beyond the grave waa full of the delighta of paradise, reflected in the gorgeous splen- dors of the uEgean Sea. The fascinating grandeur and peaceful charms of the landscape which always confronted the dwellers in Attica naturally inspired them with beautiful and prophetic visions of the invisible realms beyond. Some of the philosophers went no farther. Either they believed that the soul, like the body after death, was dissipated into the original elements from which it came, or that it ascended at once among the gods and forever abode in the realm of pure excellence.

But Socrates thought that a portion of the soul could be dragged down again. That, in short, a conscious portion of the divine being became well aware of its contamination with the passions and failures of the faltering flesh and was borne down to earth again by the weight of the miserable body. ^^ But the soul which has been polluted, and is im- pure at the time of its departure, and is the com- panion and servant of the body always, until she is led to believe that the truth is found only in the body alone, the soul which is accustomed to hate and to fear the intellectual principle, ^o you be- lieve that such a soul as this will depart pure and unsullied ? "

At this juncture in the development of the Pla- tonic or Socratic philosophy we observe to what an extent the old superstitions of belief still survived and how even so great a philosopher cannot release himself from them. For here we behold a strange

EVOLUTION OF GRECIAN BELIEF 118

and sudd^i survivaL He thinks that such a soul is a^in dragged down and restrained to this world, and its wraith is permitted to wander around tombs and sepulchres ^' in the neighborhood of which, as they tell us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions of the souls which have not departed pure, but are cloyed with sight and are therefore visible." This primitive notion is beautifully phrased by Milton in Comus, who sings :

^ But when lust By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, But most by lewd and lavish act of sin. Lets in defilement to the inward parts, The soul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodied and imbrute, till she quite lose The divine property of her first being. Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp. Oft seen in chamel vaults and sepulchres. Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave. As loath to leave the body that it loved. And likened itself by carnal sensuality To a degenerate and degraded state."

It is here that we discern the mingling of the primitive Homeric notions of the after-death estate of the departed with the later Oriental conceptions which migrated into Athens from the East For while Socrates seems to believe that the spirits of the unworthy departed still linger around the tombs, he is more inclined to believe that they re- turn to earth again in the form of some lower beast, which forefigures the moral condition of the un- fortunate individuaL

114 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

^^ I mean to say that men who have followed after gluttony, wantonness and drunkenness, and have Jbad no thought of avoiding them, would pass into asses and animals of that sort," he despairingly and tentatively exclaims to Cebes in the Fhaedo. By this hint I think we are able to detect the sources of the Socratic philosophy and how it presents but a noble and cultured evolution of the primitive and cruder conceptions of the rude Homeric civiliza- tion. The deliquescent soul degrades into the animal, thinks Socrates in a vague and uncertain manner. He is confused as to the real issue of the hampered and evil-bodied souL He has appar- ently heard of a new doctrine or of one at least that is still held but tentatively and in a vague manner by his conjecturing mind. Pythagoras has already invaded the East and returned with curious no- tions concerning the dead, and Plato himself is said to have come in contact with Oriental philosophies in his travels. Hence the doctrine of metempsy- chosis, the prevalent notion of the far East, filters vaguely into his later philosophy. He himself admits that he holds the doctrine in a most uncer- tain and unsatisfactory manner, for while making a declaration of it he qualifies it by assuring his friends that he speaks but in a simile as it were. He gives them a most vivid description of the fate that shall befall various types of human beings be- yond the grave, then partially retracts it by a sort of an apology and declares that he does not mean to indicate that his descriptions are exactly in ac- cordance with the truth, for " A man of sense ought

EVOLUTION OF GEECIAN BELIEF 115

hardly to Bay that/' but that substantiallj what he said was tme or approached the truth, or that ^ Something like this is true^ if the souls of hu- man beings may be believed to be immortaL'' It isy therefore^ dear that the degeneracy of unfor* tunate and degraded souls into inferior animals in future incarnations, as well as the ascent of purified souls to the regions of the gods, was a notion that had either been recently presented to him for his consideration or that it was an ancient tradition which he had almost outgrown. I am inclined to think that the former conclusion is the truest when we recall that the doctrine of reincarnation, while a very ancient notion, came primarily from the East, and that both Pythagoras and Plato were in* oculated by it in their Oriental travels.

However, there can be no denial of the fact that the cruder and more primitive idea that the souls of men were more like simulacra that hung around graveyards and carried with them into the world of the invisible all the necessities and characteris- tics which marked them while they still inhabited the body, clung tenaciously to the mind of Plato or Socrates, whom he represents. If we discover this to be a fact, then it will enable us to trace back the ideas of Socrates and Plato to their au- tochthonic origin and thus perhaps be able to dis- cover its naturalistic derivation.

In Gorgias he narrates a curious fable as to the dead, which he says he believes is true, but his friend, Callieles, might think it but an old woman's tale. The gist of this story is that Pluto, the king

116 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITY

of the underworld, grew discontented because he thought the judgments passed on human souls after death were not fair. The cause of this was that the judges themselves and the souls on trial still wore their clothes, hence the judge could not see through to the inward and concealed soul. He therefore insisted on both the souls and the judges standing naked at the seat of judgment that the decisions might be more just. Undoubtedly there is an arcane or esoteric meaning to this curious fable, which at this juncture we shall be unable to inves- tigate. He then continues to declare that the souls that depart from this earth are not only precisely characterized as to personality and idiosyncrasy the same as when they were in the body, but when the bodies still wear the same clothes, are marked by the same features, as flowing hair and conspic- uous nose, if such they had before death, or in such manner as easily to distinguish them should they be observed at the sepulchres. ^^ In a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be distinguishable after death, either per- fectly or in a great measure and for a time."

How clearly this reminds us of the Homeric con- ception and of the dose relation the living main- tained with the dead in that far off and forgotten time I The dead still remained as a part of the living, invisible only in form, yet actual in person- ality and presence. The tombs and the sepulchres were henceforth their homes as formerly ihe shel- ters of thatch and stone were prepared for their visible frames. The living must needs provide for

EVOLUTION OP QEECIAN BELIEF 117

these invisible Bepulchre<;reatare8 as thoroughly as though they were still associated with them in the visible world. They were indeed not dead; they were simulacra of the living, only invisible, yet as actual and as present as when they were seen in the body. Every rite must be observed.

The prevalent and awe-inspiring superstition of antiquity was the existence and possible invasion of the ghost. The purpose of all primitive religion, a purpose which, by the way, lingered among later civilizations till very recently, was deliverance from the curse of the disquieted soul that might be blown around the pendant globe, and at any time gain a disturbing access to the Kving because of its sense of neglect and injustice. It was with reference to this fear that food and garments, and money, even, were placed in the hands of the dead, that they might be able to make their wanderings successful and not return to disturb the living. Even until very recently at Irish wakes a piece of money was given to the dead that they might buy their way through the gates of death. There was a custom prevalent among the Jews of putting certain pieces of money on the eyelids of the deceased, as some supposed for the purpose of shutting out the linger- ing light of this world, but more than likely to as- sist the ghost to go on its way without material em- barrassment.

It was this same fact that Homer indicated when he speaks of Patroclus's ghost coming to the bed- side of Achilles and chiding him for not completing the funeral ceremonies, and of Odyssey finding his

118 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

old friend Elpenor wandering around in Hades and unable to cross the Styx because proper provision had not been made for his departure.

We must not pass over this grave consideration of the Greeks regarding the proper burial of their dead and the meaning attached to it The exact location^ the proper accompaniments of food and garment, the proper incineration, are all most seri- ous considerations. When old Priam begged Achilles to return to him the remains of Hector, a most humiliating attitude for a conquered chief to assume, it was because the prevalent thought compelled him to believe that if the body was not buried in the proper place it would wander round the world in a hideous manner and be forever at unrest. Antigone's determination to sprinkle dust on the dead body of her brother, Polynices, and thus assure him burial in the sight of the gods, although it meant her own doom and ultimate sui- cide, is another illustration of the importance that attached to burials among the ancients*

Now was all this a portion of their religion which came to them by revelation from the gods, or from innate consciousness of the meaning and the future of death, or was it but a residual disposition conse- quent on old superstitions which once the race enter- tained? It seems to me the latter statement is nearest the truth. The survival of the dead was to the Greek a keen fact in his religion, but it was a conception of survival which remained among the cultured Greeks of a later period as a relic of su- perstitions entertained by their forebears, which

EVOLUTION OF GKEOIAN BELIEF 119

were the same as prevailed among all the autochr thones of earth.

Not imlike these Grecian superstitions are those of the OjibwaySy who see the souls of their dead laden with life's utensils on their journey to the spiritrworld — the men still carrying their shadowy pipes and guns, the women their baskets and pad- dles, and the boys their toy bows and arrows. We are informed that in Peru the widows of slain chieftains will kill themselves that they may con- tinue to be of service to their lord; not infre- quently his attendants would be buried with him^ tiiat his bodyguard might be intact in the ghostly world to which he had departed. This idea was carried so far that frequently the chieftain's horsea were slain and buried with him, accoutered in all their martial appareL Thus in Madagascar, we are informed, was King Badam, only recently^ buried mounted on his uniformed horse, which waa interred with him.^

How do these savage conceptions differ from those of the Greeks as shown in the story of Pa- troclus being burned at his death with the Trojan captives and his horses and hounds, or of Melissa^ who had been slain by a jealous husband, returning^ as a ghost and shivering because her clothes had not been burnt with her at the burial? The per- sistence of such superstitions long after the cause which originally gave rise to them is remarkable among all people. " In Europe,'* as Tyler re-

1 See Idler's ** Anthropology.'*

120 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOBTALITY

minds us^ ^^ long after the wives and slaves ceased thus to follow their master^ the warrior's horse was still solemnly killed at his grave and buried with hinu" He narrates a case in Treves as late as 1781. We know that the custom still prevails of leading the horse, all comparisoned, at the side of the coffin of the dead general in the final oort^e. '^ Hell-shoon '' are still worn in the German vil- lages, on the feet of the corpses, etc Thus we see how these most ancient and barbarian customs still linger among us in some symbolic form centuries after the occasions that gave rise to them have vanished. It is, therefore, easy for us to grasp the idea that the notions of the survival of the dead which seemed to be instinct in the minds of the ancient Greeks, both in the rude Homeric age and the age of Plato and Pericles, were but psycholog- ical residua of long forgotten experiences. Plutarch informs us that Aristotle insists that the opinion of the dead surviving the grave and living in some form after death is as old as man and its origin is beyond discovery. But Plutarch lived in an age before the modem science of archseology was in- vented.

In this discussion we must not lose sight of the fact that all notions, ceremonies and customs which prevailed at burials and with reference to the dead arose out of the fact that the fear of the return of the ghost to do evil to the living was universally prevalent. This fear still lingers in modem civ- ilization whenever a graveyard is passed, and even 80 advanced a scientist as Priestley could not forego

EVOLUTION OF GEECIAN BELIEP 121

the psychological instinct, but fainted when he thought he saw a ghost in passing through a ceoh eteiy at night

As a witness of this prevalent fear we hare the custom once extant and ahnost universal among savages of eating the dead bodies of their kindred. This was done not as a mere cannibalistic predilec- tion, but because of the fear which the savage man entertained of the spirits of the departed. This same conception of fear of the dead is still in vogue among the uncouth villagers of European nations. There is a popular objection to carrying the corpse to the graveyard over a private road way, for fear that the ghost will afterwards come trailing bade over the same path. In Scotland they turn all the chairs upside down after the obsequies, so that the ghost will not return and occupy any of them. This reminds us of Banquets return to the banquet and frightening Macbeth as his ghostly figure sat in its accustomed place. The dance in Scotland and the wake in Ireland are kept up all night to scare away any spirit that may be attracted by the corpse still awaiting buriaL^

Such instances could be multiplied by the hun- dred, which go to prove that the burial customs among all people are originally the same and that they all depend on some conception about the de- parted body which they entertain and which gives rise to frightening superstitions. But there must have been a still more ancient and primitive notion

1 ** Folklore and Etlmology,'* Comme.

122 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

which underlay these later oonceptions and from which the superstitions sprung. Why, in short, should there ever have arisen in the mind of the savage man any such idea that the ghost could re- turn, why, indeed, any notion of a ghost at all, and why was the location of the ghost always asso- ciated with the place where the body was buried, rather than where the body was slain ? Why were these wandering spirits supposed to be so anxious to get a proper burial and especially in a certain location which alone would be satisfactory to them ? At first thought there would seem to be something recondite and mysterious underlying these notions, and, in fact, because many have supposed this, on these very facts cults of mysticism and spiritistic vagaries have been founded.

But when we seek a natural cause for all human experiences we soon learn that we shall not be dis* appointed. Nature labors along one line and in one realm only and that is the realm of law and logical sequence.

We shall find then that the original conception of the ghost was quite as material as the ghost itself seemed to be ; but that originally it was some- thing wholly different from what it finally became in the aroused imagination of frightened savages. In a former chapter we observed how the breath and the shadow of the body give rise to primitive oonceptions of the soul, which emanated directly from observation of these phenomena. The breath was the most subtle and illusive physical quality^ of the body, and when the latter disappeared, at

EVOLUTION OF QEECIAN BELIEF 123

least this substance, the last to escape from the lips, the last to voice inarticulately the sufferings of the body, came gradually to be considered the presence of the spirit itself that escaped from the buried corpse. Again, the shadow, which lingered round every human and animal frame as well as every ob- ject of earth, when they intercepted the sun-rays, seemed to be another subtle, howbeit more opaque counterpart of the objective physical frame, and the last to leave the body when it was lowered into the grava For we must remember that burial in the ground was the most primitive form of depositing the dead and incineration came afterwards in a later age of development.

In this later age indeed all the ideas asso- ciated with the deceased body or the corpse were effectually altered. The same ideas or notions prevailed, but they were adapted to different in- terpretations of the soul. When the body was buried, as we have seen, the widows, horses, dogs, food and raiment were all buried with it. But when men came to bum their dead, then these same articles, instead of being buried, were burnt with them. Beautiful poetic imagery grew gradually out of this purifying custom. In some way the flame of the funeral pyre was associated with the flnTning glory of the departing sun, and from such ingenuity emanated the story of the shirt of Nessus clinging to the body of Heracles, who ordered his funeral pile, knowing that his end was near. A palpably poetic interpretation of Mt ^tna encir^ ded by tiie flaming splendor of the setting sun

124 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITY

across the iSgean Sea, and dying in the shadows of the night as the sun finally disappeared beneath the darkling waters.

But as the keen imagination of the untutored savage built his poetic legends on the glory of the sunset, he also associated with them a gloomier as- pect in observing the encircling clouds of the dusk that settle upon it and at length remain alone in the darkening horizon. The cloud some way became to him a wraith of the sunken or de- parted sun. The cloud always accompanied the sun and never so suggestively, nay, so pathetically, as at sunset when his glory seemed to desert him. They came to feel that the cloud was the ghost of the king of day, the wraith that guarded and pro- tected him in his course. The cloud was universal and betimes invisible, yet ever present To them it sang:

'^ I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores, I change but I cannot die/*

It becomes, as Shelley continues, the voice that al- ways cried :

'^ I silently laugh at my own epitaph, And out of the caverns and rain. Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I rise and upbuild it again.*'

But their observations and imaginings relative to the cloud were also accompanied by their timid discernment of a mysterious phenomenon which arose at the incineration of a human body. When

EVOLUTION OF GRECIAN BELIEF 126

the flame burst forth from the burning wood and thus Bjmbolized the advent of the departing soul in the splendid fields of heavenly asphodels, they ob- served that it was enhaloed by a never failing cloud, which indeed lingered much longer with the con- suming corpse than the flame that spoke of the sun's triumph. What was this strange, mysterious, personifying smoke t What else could the untu- tored mind believe but that as the cloud was the wraith or ghost of the departing sun, so the smoke was the visible presence of the spirit of the de- parted man who now lay smoldering within its em- Inraoe. Here, then, was the very presence of the departed chief himself, come to watch over the body which the mourners were thus honoring. Homer seems to indicate this common belief in the age of his heroes by declaring that as soon as Patrodus left Achilles in his dream he saw him re-entering the ground in a form like smoke.^

It is not for us here to enter deeper into this fascinating study. We can but point out that from the conception of the smoke being the very presence of the spirit of the departed, grew the idea of the souls of men being spirits of the air and no longer the grovelling goblins that chattered and shivered around the awaiting tomb. From this primitive imagery evolved the Aryan gods of the air that are the constant substratum of every conception of the after life which has descended as a heritage to these later ages. From this interpretation came

1 See Kmrfn ** PrimitWe BeUefs."

126 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the idea of the spirits curling like smoke through the empyrean and passing from one phase of exist- ence to another, formalizing that stupendous idea of metempsychosis and reincarnation which at one time so universally prevailed among the most learned races of antiquity. A notion which indeed up to the present hour clings tenaciously to many of the most thoughtful among men.

Whatever force is therefore to be attached to the conception of the survival of the dead which pre- vailed among the Greeks, and was so gloriously and with unparallelled grandeur woven into their civ- ilization and literature, it cannot be other than to corroborate the results of the research which we are attempting in the origin of the beliefs of man- kind in the future of the human soul. Notwith- standing the fact that the idea arose in the age of Pericles, through the philosophical interpretation and glossing of so powerful a mind as that of Plato, into one of the most matchless systems of thought ever conceived by the human mind, yet by cau- tiously and sincerely tracing it to its primitive origin I think we are compelled to assert that it arose as all the ideas among men, not innately, but from experience, observation, imagination and fancy.

Beautiful and ethical, as without a doubt the ceremonies and instructions administered in the Eleusinian and Dionysian mysteries were, and which, notwithstanding their final deterioration and degeneracy, were primarily a noble ritual of re- ligion, even these divulge their origin in the im-

EVOLUTION or GEECIAN BELIEF 187

ageij of their ceremonies. Hesiod gives a yivid description of the future state of the soul^ as if it were authentic and descended by revelation from the gods. He declares that, ^^ The souls of the righteous wander over the earth wrapped in fluid- like envelopes^ which make them visible, and wield- ing their regal powers. . • • The wicked

I are held in Tartarus, where they are punished by

the memories of their evil deeds. • . ." Here we may discern the philosophic and spiritual re- mains of the primitive observation of the sun's set- ting and the " wrapping " clouds which encircle it like a fluid-frame and make it visible after it has disappeared from the heavens. Indeed a careful

I study will reveal the fact that all scriptural and

religious similes in the Semitic and Christian re-

I ligions as well as the Aryan are associated with

"Ught/' "clouds/' "shadow," "darkness,'' and so on, which are the primitive derivatives of the no- tions of spirit, soul, heaven and hell.

As one of the proofs, then, on which the phil- osophical mind has so long rested, of the survival of the dead, we cannot logically refer to the im- memorial conception of the after life, for we must now be quite well satisfied that it is not an innate instinct, and therefore presumably a revelation to the human soul, but rather a product of primitive imagination and the casual study of natural phe- nomena.

As in the study we have already made of Egyp- tian, Parsee, Druidic, Asiatic and other notions concerning the future of the dead, so in our study

128 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

of similar notions among both the barbaric and the cultured Greeks we seem to be driven to the con- clusion that there is nothing suggested by such ideas other than that they gradually evolved dirough the ages from crude conceptions to philosophical glosses and stupendous intellectual systems.

CHAPTEB X

NATURALISTIC ORIGIN OF THE JEWISH

CONCEPTION

In attempting a survey of Hebrew thought relat- ing to the future state of the departed we are some- what surprised to discover that ahnost the entire gamut of human conceptions, from the most primi- tive to the most highly philosophical, was run by this thoughtful and plastic people.

There can scarcely be said to be any distinctive Jewish conception of the after life, for the notion varied with the changing periods of Hebrew his- tory. Being a people whose development from its crudest phase to the loftiest civilization which they attained is so clearly set forth in their sacred writ- ings, we find here a concrete expression of the evo- lution of all human thought relative to the state of the dead beyond the grave. The Jews were pri- marily a most savage and barbarous people, whose ideas of the after life were not only rudimentary, but vague and uncertain. Their folklore relative to the subject is almost identical with that of the Ojibways, the Mycseneans, the Celts, Druids, or Scandinavians. In short, the first notions of all people concerning the dead, as we have already shown, are so almost identical that it is palpable they have been derived or deduced from their ob- servations of natural phenomena.

We have seen how among the primitive Greeks

129

180 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

and Trojans, as well as among all other primitive tribes, the idea of the condition of the soul was derived from the observation of the breath, the shadow, the setting of the sun, etc. In accord- ance with the nature of the prevalent phenomena in every different tribe or nation the notion of the soul's condition after death correspondingly varied. If the physical surroundings consisted of happy climes and golden seas, their notion of the future was paradisaical and pleasing. If any rev- elled in the splendors of Cerulean skies littered with worlds of gold and silver they read the story of their departed in the wanderings of these worlds. ^ With what glorious characters, with what forms of deathless beauty, defiant of decay, the sky was written overf Beneath such skies the seers of Olympus and bards of the .£gean discerned ^^ The great snake that binds in his bright coil half the mighty host.'' And from these observations grew all the myths and traditions not only concerning gods, but the souls of the great who had once glori- fied the earth and now tread the invisible fields of asphodel.

Among a nation whose shores were overladen with heavy gloom, where the sun shone only betimes, and then was seen to sink deep into the gloom of the land of Cimmerians, the conception of the after life was full of ill-foreboding and depressing mis- ery.

The habitations of the early Hebrews were among high mountains and rocky cliffs. The Jordan plunging and roaring at the feet of these lofty

ORIGIN OF JEWISH CONCEPTION 181

peaks, whose grim shadows fell gloomily athwart its breast, gave rise to many imaginings and f and* fal glimpses of the futare. Knowing so well the fondness of the human mind to seize on fancy's wing the flitting image of some natural scene and carry it to dazzling heights, we need not wonder that such surroundii:^ first suggested to the sim- ple minds of these primitive Jews their first inti- mations of the after life. Imagination is primarily the most forceful faculty of the Semitic mind, which was perhaps generated in the primitive abodes of the people who conquered the Jebusites and reared their immortal city. Their plastic minds were affected, too, as we shall see, not only by their physical surroundings, but by each distinc- tive stratum of mental and moral influence through which they have passed in their centuries of wan- derings.

Studying, then, the varying interpretations of the state of the dead which prevailed from time im- memorial among these people to the present time, we are presented with a complete panoramic view of the changing conceptions of the entire human race relative to the abode and occupation of the de- parted who once dwelt upon this planet The vari- ous ideas that sprung spontaneously in the minds of the people fall easily into five distinctive classes. First, ^e dead, as merely hoUow, mindless, floating forms, caught and imprisoned in iron or rocky cells. Second, the dead, as possible subjects of resurreo- tion, their very bodies again to return to earth or ascend to the skies. Third, the dead, as conceivably

183 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

glorified spirits to dwell forever with God in His power. Fourth, the dead, as victims of eternal judgment, who are to be drawn up before the final Judge and assigned to Gehenna or Paradise, accord- ing to His wisdouL Fifth, the utter annihilation of the dead, the body and the soul alike having re- turned to their primary elements and forever dis- solved in the primal essence of the universe.

All these sentiments are so clearly and strongly set forth in the sacred and profane writings of these people that we are at once forced to conclude no authenticity can inhere in them, no claim be made for their divine origin or authority, no reliance placed on them as guides or inspiration of human thought We can but conclude that the Hebrews attained their ideas of the after life from the same source as all other peoples, and that even such portions of their conception as are engrossed in sacred Scriptures are easily traced to naturalistic origin, which neither calls for nor intimates any supernatural revelation.

The earliest notion of the dead as portrayed in their writings is very similar to that of the Greeks as set forth in the Homeric epics. The dead be- come a hollow, shadowy, mindless, unconscious thing, still maintaining the verisimilitude of form and figure, even the identity of raiment and physi- ognomy, yet a thing that can neither speak nor move, but is fixed fast in some forbidding prison, from which escape is impossible. Tliis prison is gloomy, the blackness of darkness, the bottomless depth of an impenetrable pit. Deeply conscious

ORIGIN OF JEWISH CONCEPTION 183

of the fnliginotui woe of these deaths, Job ories piteonsly, '^I go whence I shall not return; the land of darkness, the shadow of death; a land of darkness as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is darkness.''

Vividly here we discern the soul of the departed as a shadow sinking darkly into shadowy darkness. We see the picture of a deep cave, around whose mouth hover glimmering forms of light mingling with flittering shades, gliding furtively into the impenetrable depths whence nothing ever returns, where ever abides thick and undissolvable darkness. The gloom could not be painted more forbiddingly ; the anticipation of utter destruction, so far as con- scious and mental vitality might be concerned, could not be more positive or inconsolable. The picture here presented, which is oft repeated in the older Scriptures of the Hebrews, is very similar to that of the fate of the dead in the Homeric legends, as has already been shown.

Just as Orcus or Pluto reigned in Hades, a vast hollow region beneath the surface of the earth, reached by the facile descent of Avemus, so in the dark and impenetrable pit of the grave reigned the ** King of Terrors " who Job declared awaited the wicked, when this tabernacle of the flesh shall have been dissolved. As among the early Greeks no sense of punishment attached to the condemnation of the dead to the abode of the shades, but was merely regarded as a gloomy and inconsolable consequence of the plan of life, so among the early Hebrews

184 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the shock of death was inoonsolabloy not because punishment was meted out to the departed, but merely because they had gone whence no power could fetch them again to earth.

There must, however, be some reason why among most of the early peoples of the world the idea of death was associated with gloom and darkness, other than what has thus far been indicated We may suppose that because in our refined apprehen- sion of the glory of existence, and the woe whidi betides us at the hour of death, when we are so wrought with agony and all the future looks so sud- denly dark, that a gloomy conception of the after life would be natural and instinctive with all the race. We must not, however, imagine that the feel- ings with which we approach the sad hour lingered likewise in the breast of the primitive or savage man. Such fine and sympathetic emotions have been largely developed through ages of civilization and growth. The first men of the earth had no such deep emotions of the heart. Their dead were dropped without ceremony wherever they chanced to be in their nomadic wanderings. Even the old were consigned to premature graves because they became an encumbrance to the multitude in their roamings. The gloomy anticipation with which death was apprehended must therefore have arisen from some other cause than that merely of sympa- thetic regretfulness at the disappearance of an ac- customed companion.

I think the solution of the matter may be found in the early methods of sepulture almost universal

ORIGIN OF JEWISH CONCEPTION 186

among the primitive peoples. We have ahready seen how among the Scandinavians and other raoea sepultures consisted of cromlechs or arrangements of stones in circular and chambered architecture* Frobablj this method of burial preceded the grave dug beneath the surface of the soil which still lin- gers in present civilization. That of incineration followed that of burial in the ground, which was itself preceded by a still more ancient and curious custom springing from the topography of the land and from the necessities of existence. The first custom, apparently, of the burial of the dead con- sisted in their deposit in caves, which Nature her- self had hollowed, and which required but little or no assistance from the labors of man. The earliest dwellers of the earth abode with the wild beasts^ with the bear and the mammoth, with the rein- deer and the lion, in the deep caves which had been carved in the bowels of the earth by the waters of the ocean or the cleavage of earthquakes or volcanic emptioBS. In these deep, forbidding, cloud^nvel- oped and shadowy-bosomed caves men found their first abodes, and buried their immediate dead.

The early races out of which the Jews were formed, of which the Sible gives us any intima- tion, were troglodites, or cave-dwellers, in their cus- toms and habits akin to the Kelts, the Iberians, or the Horites, who preceded them in Idumsea. This fact is early revealed in Scripture where the names of many famous caves are recorded. There is the cave of Zoar, into which Lot and his daughters re- tired after the destruction of Sodom and Gomop*

186 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

rah ; the cave of Macpelah, in the field of Ephron^ for which Abraham contracted so insistently with the sons of Heth ; the cave of Makkedah, into which the carcasses of the five Amorite kings were cast by Joshua after his victory over them; the cave of AduUam^ where David dwelt with all his recruits after his defiance of Saul and to avoid the King's heartless persecutions ; the cave of Engedi, to which also David retreated for defense ; the cave in which Obadiah concealed the prophets; the cave where Elijah dwelt on Mt Oarmel, and where Moses found his abode in the cleft of Mount Horeb; all of which are familiar in Hebrew tradition, but which have not been often regarded as illustrations of the custom of the early Hebrews to dwell in caves, before they had learned to rear structures by their own hands.

It was but natural in a country as mountainous and volcanic as Palestine, where sepulture beneath the surface was a practical impossibility, that these caves, especially the deeper and darker ones, should be used as cemeteries. Naturally the dwellers would abide in the more open or accessible portions of the cave, and the sepulchres would be formed out of the more concealed or less ax^essible sections. While the accustomed dweller would therefore but little regard the inconvenience or gloominess of the ordinary cave in which he found his abode, he would be forced to contemplate the severer and blacker recesses into which he groped when he sought there to deposit his burden of the dead. It would become to him, indeed, the "blackness of

OBIQIN OF JEWISH CONCEPTION 187

daxkDBBBj^ the '^darknees the light of which is darkness.'' There he would dimly discern flitting, shadowy flgores, fleeting shades of varying degrees of dnn and grey, as his eye more and more became accustomed to the gloomier interior. Soon these would seem to him to be the shadowy relics of the corpse he had hastily and with a shudder dropped in the dark recess from which with nervous antici- pations he speedily retired. And betimes, doubt- less, these grim and grewsome shades would wan- der to the mouth of the pit and fearlessly prowl around the moonlit entrance. Then, in ^^ the witch- ing time of night," all the ill-forebodings and im- aginary evils consequent on the return of the ghost would haunt his timid mind. Soon the fields in the neighborhood of the caves and mountains be- came populated with this ghostly and shadowy com- pany of the departed till the entire region, to the morbid imagination of the wanderer, was '' the val- ley of the shadow of death.*'

What else, then, could his first conception of the dead be but " a birth and a forgetfulness." They who had once lived and toiled amid the active were now but hollow, mindless, floating and intactile sim- ulacra, which they thus observed returning from the shadowy deep, but could not apprehend. They were indeed " forgotten as dead men out of mind '^ ; cast away " like a vessel that perisheth." Sunk in the forbidding depths of the gloomy pit the dead are voiceless, without hope, and forever blotted out of the memory of man. "For the living know that they shall die ; but the dead know not anything,

188 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

neither have they any more a reward ; for the mem- ory of them is forgotten."

Such ideas were palpably engendered by the pri- mal burial customs of the autochthonic tribes of Israel, who first populated the plains of Palestine. If we scan the burial customs of all people we shall, I think, find therein the reflection of their concep- tion of the future fate of the dead. When the bodies are swiftly deposited by nomadic tribes in the accompanying caves of their wanderings, as we see above, the fate of the dead resembles the fixed and immovable state of the mountain in whose sides the caves have been found. When the shadowy forms seem to escape from the gloom of the cave and wander in the immediate neighborhood in the moonlit night, the notion rises in the imaginative mind of the primitive man that the dead return, first as mindless ghosts to harry the living, then as the resurrected bodies of the departed, as in visit- ing spirits or in reincarnated forms.

Then when the custom develops of depositing the dead in well-formed graves, as cromlechs or cata- combs, or well-dug graves in yielding soil, the no- tion grows that the ghost itself has been buried with the body, and cannot therefore return to earth to inspire fear and dread in the heart of the living; special care being, as we have seen, exercised to find the proper location for the interment of the ghost that it may wander no more. Then as if to emphasize the certain dissolution of the ghost, so that it might indeed never return to earth, the cus- tom of incineration, (the funeral pyre or the bum-

OEIGIN OF JEWISH CONCEPTION 189

isg ship becoming the coffin of the finally depart- ^)9 S^"^ uito temporary vogue.

Anon when the ffapposition of the preservation of the fionl in Hades or Purgatory, (that it might finally appear for judgment before the Oreat De- cider of human fates ), developed in the mind of man^ the body was kept from decay by the science of embalming. Not perhaps, as we have shown, that the soul might again inhabit this very body in the resurrection, but that the figure of it might be preserved in the household while its spirit would await the final day of judgment The body would be thus preserved to symbolize the continued life of the soul; for as the spirit shall never perish out of the immortal realms of the invisible, neither shall the visible body in the realm of the living. Among the Hebrews, as among all peoples, we find their burial customs changing as they change their views of death, becoming what might appear to be but a reflection of these changing views. We have seen that the first mode of burial was depositing the dead in the rocky caves of the moxmtain side. The custom of incineration never developed among them ; but we observe their temporary adoption of this strange custom in the disposition of the bones of Saul and his sons, and which exceptional usage among them I think is a corroboration of my the- ory.

There must have been some reason why a na- tion suddenly diverted from its sacred usage in the disposition of the bodies of its royal family, and certainly is not to be attributed to whim or

140 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

iBeidental passion. Saul had woefully disgraced himself and the people of IsraeL He had am- suited with a familiar spirit among a foreign and despised race; he had violated all the sacred and profane customs of the nation, and to cap the dimaz of his offenses he had heen most outrageously be- headed by the Philistines after a scandalous defeat The burning of his body seemed therefore to indi- cate that his memory was wholly to be blotted out and that his soul was likewise to be annihilated. His body is brought back at great risk and only after an all night's search by the timorous people that it might be consigned to the dead in the proper locality. Precisely so Antigone among the Greeks endured immolation that she might secure a proper burial for her brothers. The spirit of Saul might return to do mischief to the forlorn people of Israel if his body was left for the beasts and birds to de- vour in the fields of the Philistines. Therefore it must be rescued at great risk, and disgracefully burnt, that its power may be forever destroyed in visible and invisible realms.

This seems to be at least the only rational inter- pretation that can be put on the sudden adoption of a custom which among the Gentile nations was honored, but among the Hebrews was regarded as a sign of dishonor and disgrace.

The more rational idea of the soul's intelligent and conscious existence after death came gradually to be revealed in the Jewish custom of ancestor worship, first vaguely referred to in the gathering of the bones of the dead to their fathers. The

OBIQIN OF JEWISH CONCEPTION 141

worship of ancestxy eeems indeed to have been the primitiye religion of the Hebrews before the intro- duction of Jfthyism by Moiee. It was based upon the idea of the soul then prevalent Stade has shown that animiflni prevailed universally among these primitive people. The animating principle was either " breath '* or " wind ** — soul or spirit. They left the body at death but could go back again to the body, at least the *^ rush '' or spirit could do so. The ancestor, therefore, never really expired bat was always present, as in the manes and lares of Greeks and Bomans, and in the '^ tablets'' of the Chinese, to arouse the life of the household to good or evil deeds* Hence, the great anxiety ex- ercised of proper interment for their kings and liouBehold heads. Sheol, the Hebrew Hades, was the place of assemblage of all these departed spir- its, and the often repeated expression in the Bible, '^to be gathered to one's fathers," means to meet them in this shadowy realm. Hence, there were offerings to the dead ; oracles and incantations were observed; household gods were maintained; and even family worship precisely like that among the Greeks and Bomans was enjoined.^

Manifestly every notion concerning the after life entertained by the ancient Hebrews was im- bibed f A>m either ^their contact with nature or from association with people more advanced in phi- losophy and metaphysics. It can easily be shown that not till post-captivity times did they accept the notion of personal immortality, which indeed

t Jewish Ency. " Anoestor Worship."

142 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

has never been strennouslj insisted upon in Jewish teachings. The emphasis of all Hebrew teaching has ever been on practical righteousness, on the cul- tivation of correct character in this life regardless of what possibilities may lie beyond.

The first conceptions, as we have already shown, were purely animistic, the residuum of the life of the individual still lingering like a wandering but mindless shadow flitting through the land of the living. Not till much later times, not till they came in contact with Egyptian, Zoroastrian and Parsee ideas did they entertain a possibility of judgment on the departed, of their receiving pun- ishment or reward for their deeds in this life, or of the possibility of their dwelling inmiortally with Jehovah. At first when the notion of continuous after life came to their minds it referred only to Jahveh. Only after Abraham taught them of the One God, and Moses of I AM — Jahveh — did they vaguely conceive of immortality as we ap- prehend it; and then, indeed, they referred it ex- clusively to Him, the one only supreme and im- mortal Being. ^^ Eternal life was ascribed ex- clusively to God and to celestial beings who ' Eat of the tree of life and live forever ' ; whereas man by being driven out of the Garden of Eden was deprived of the opportunity of eating of the food of immortality." *

The book of Job was apparently written at the time the Hebrews were passing from their idea of the after life as a place for the assemblage of

1 Jew. Ency.

ORIGIN OF JEWISH CONCEPTION 143

shadowy ghosts to the possibility of the resurrec- tion body standing in the welcoming presence of its redeemer on this planet

For without any pretension to consistency he makes two wholly contradictory and diverse state- ments relative to the after life of mankind. ^^ For there is hope of a tree, if it be out down, that it will spront again • • • But man dieth and wasteth away; yea man giveth up the ghost and where is he ? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and dryeth up, so man lieth down and riseth not; till the heavens are no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep • • . If a man die shall he live again; all the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come/*

There seems to be here a confusion of thought. He insists that the dead' shall not awake and that they are forever beyond reclaim, yet he intimates that a change awaits him, although he has just said that the dead and decayed man can never be changed to Kfe, though the tree if cut down may again sprout. However, the " change '^ to which Job here refers need not necessarily mean the change from death to returning life as many sup^ pose. It could scarcely be an intelligent writing that would be so inconsistent with itself. It is therefore a better interpretation to suppose that the change which he so expectantly awaits, is merely the change of death itself, when he shall be per- mitted to flee this world of mortal woe and enjoy the unbroken and eternal sleep of the grave.

144 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Yet in another passage he cries out so exultantly that he shall live again, we are forced to conclude either that he was living in an age when the idea of the resurrection of the body was being slowly ac- cepted as a doctrine of faith, or that the passage I am about to quote is a later interpolation in his writings. The latter conclusion seems to me the more apparent For he says : ^' I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God ; whom I shall see for myself, and mine qres shaU behold, and not another."

But even in this passage Job's intimation of im- mortality is after all but the outcry of a feeble hope, a deepening desire and not an exultant faith. It was perhaps the first vague and yearning ex- pression of the growing faith in the possibility that when the body dies it may sometime be restored to the land of living. It is the progressive expres- sion of the idea that the shadowy spirit itself may return and wander through the earth if not fast- ened in the grave, but now transferred from the ephemeral soul or breath to the more substantial and permanent body in which the breath of life abides.

When, however, the Jewish* mind comes in con- tact with the later Grecian and Persian thought, the notion of immortality is proclaimed with more convincing certainty and exultancy. The Psalmist sings (xvi : 11) : ^' Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy

ORIGIN OF JEWISH CONCEPTION 145

right hand there are pleasures forevermore/' The development from the mere resurrection conception of the soul to that of spiritual life beyond is so apparent in the sacred writings that they can be easily classified. There are but few passages at beat that refer to it Even in the days of the ad- vent of Jesus we know that the Sadduceee rejected the notion of the resurrection, but it is not clear that ihqr wholly disbelieved in the immortality of the flouL

It seema quite manifest that whatever idea of the survival of the dead may have been entertained by the Hebrews in ancient and modem times, they were the immediate consequence of their con- tact with nature or their association with people among whom th^ wandered. The ideas that arose in their minds concerning this subject were evi- dently natural growths, the same as among all the people of the world, and are not to be regarded as intimations of any innate spiritual inspiration, but merely as natural deductions from the common ob- servation of phenomena and experience.

CHAPTER XI

ORIGnT OF CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION

OF AFTER LIFE

It is commonly supposed that the doctrine of personal immortditj found its first forcible and specific declaration in the teachings of Jesus; that indeed, the one distinctive and characteristic doc- trine of the Christian religion is that of the im- mortal life of the individual souL

^It may be a surprise to some to learn that this doctrine developed in the Christian church pre- cisely as it did in all former religions; but that it assumed a clearer and more definite form be- cause when Christianily began the doctrine had already found a fuller expression in existing religions.

In order that we may better appreciate this fact ^we must first satisfy ourselves as to the exact char- acter of the teaching of the Jewish church at the advent of Jesus. For at bottom the Christian is distinctly a Jewish religion, which in later times lias been modified by pagan and rationalistic phi- losophy. In the previous chapter we traced the origin and natural development of the Jewish no- tion of the soul's immortality, and learned that at best it assumed but a vague and varying expres- sion throughout the entire history of that nation. The ancient Jewish mind was conscious chiefly of the solidarity of " Israel/' and in all its contempla-

146

OHEISTIAN CONCEPTION 147

tions of immortality it seemed to anticipate the restoration and perpetuity of the people as a whole. It contemplated Israel as a world power^ a political and economic oiganism^ a spiritual soUdarityi whose destruction was inconceiyable, for it was chosen of the Lord to rule the world. Hence it looked forward so ardently to the anticipated Mes- sianic kingdom when this truth would be manifest to all mankind.

But we observe a gradual change in their inter- pretation concerning the final fate of Israel as weU as of individuals who constitute it At first the Day of the Lord, as it was called, was regarded as the judgment of Jehovah on Israel itself ; but only in tiie prophets and in the Book of Daniel did it assume the character of a judgment on individual Jews* Yet slowly in the writings of the prophets we discern a gleam of a still higher conception of the future of man, till in the later Isaiah it breaks forth in eloquent glow. It took the shape of a Messianic dream of the future to be instated by a glorified son of David — a golden age of para- disiacal bUss, of which all the traditions were re- plete with eloquent intimations.

It foretold of a time of world-peace when He would bear the government upon his shoulders and " new heavens and a new earth '' would be re- vealed. But this glimpse came to the prophet only when the Jews were in captivity in Babylon, and the dream of their redemption appealed to them as a possible realization. His wild, exultant spirit at length sees not only the restoration of Israel, of

148 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the City of Zion on the mountain height, before which all kingdoms and crowns shall be crushed and annihilated; but he even discerns a possible resurrection and salvation for the individual Israelite, who lives righteously before the Lord. "He wiU swallow up death in victory; he will wipe away tears from all faces • • • And it shall be said in that day, Lo this is our Ood; we have waited for Him and He will save us • • • we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation I '' (Isaiah).

But this joyous, howbeit faint, glimpse of the salvation of the individual soul crossed the poet's vision, we must remember, when his people lay in exile and captivity in Babylon. This according to Stanley was about the year 560 B. C. ; the age that bordered closely on that of Plato and Pericles, Zoroaster and Socrates. It was the age of the re- naissance of the spiritual, intellectual and ethical regeneration, which pervaded all lands.

The faint idea of salvation and immortality thus tearfully voiced by Isaiah is made more vivid and formalistic in the cry of Daniel, in a still later age. Here we find the germinal form of that eschatological theology which in later Christian times was exaggerated and emphasized by the leaders of the faith. Instead of a faint hint of salvation, as portrayed in Isaiah, we read here not only of a resurrection for the just but also of the unjust ** Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting contempt'' This suggestive

CHKISTIAN CONCEPTION 149

passage from Daniel was written about four hun- dred years later than the prophecies of Isaiah. The philosophy of Plato which the Hellenizing Jews had imbibed under Antiochus Epiphanes has palpably entered yividly into the higher conscious- ness of the leaders of Israel and is voiced in the outburst of Daniel's vision.

The doctrine of the final Judgment of which so much was afterwards made in Christian theology had th^i its germinal origin in Daniel's echo of Egyptian eechatology and Athenian philosophy.

From these early hints the Talmudic writers among the Jews developed a most fantastic concep- tion of the future heaven to which the righteous would ascend; but there was little relating to a permanent condition of those who passed beyond the grave, " The whole eschatological system of retribution through paradise and hell never as- sumed in Judaism the character of dogmatic be- liefy and Talmudic Judaism boldly transferred the scene of the heavenly judgment from the hereafter to the annual Day of Judgment at the beginning of the year." *

The question naturally presents itself, Why did the Jews so utterly avoid any positive foreglimpse of the after life, when as we know they were en- vironed by people, such as the Egyptians and Baby- lonians, who so enthusiastically and vividly por- trayed it Among these people it was the persist- ent and most characterising feature of their reli- gious doctrines, as already shown, and yet, though

1 Jewish 'Eney., in looo.

160 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the Jews had been from the earliest times over- shadowed by Egyptian influences, and in a later age by Zoroastrian and Babylonian beliefs, there is an amazing omission among them of any direct and positive declaration concerning the doctrine.

It is supposed by some, because Moses had in- culcated in the minds of his followers the dangers which attached to all phases of mythological and im- aginative religion^ as so forcibly illustrated by the nations which surrounded them in the wilderness and even by the great Egyptian nation itself, that the disposition had developed in the Jewish mind for many centuries to ignore or denounce any tend- ency to a worship, whose authority depended on a conception of a future life. The Gbd of the Jews was not so much a distant Eing in the skies as he was the head of their government, the ruler in their theocracy; he led and fought with them on the battle fields, upon him fell the responsibility of their defeats and redounded the glory of their tri- umphs. He was wholly different to the gods of the Egyptians in the time of Moses, or the gods of the Babylonians in the days of the Captivity; be- cause he was more immediate, more human, more accessible. And he assumed these features because he was not the product of mythological imagina- tion, but a super-human figure who had grown up among them from their earliest recollections. ^^The Hebrew prophets and the priests of the second temple are ioonolcastic monotheists and haters of myth in any form. Thus, they have ra- tionalized the creation myth, the story of Mar-

CHEISTIAN CONCEPTION 161

duk's fight with the dragon, the legends of Samas the sxin-gody changing him into a hero and a judge called Sampson ; and in doing this they passed over in silence the belief in immortality, or, wherever it. is alluded to, we can still recognise unmistakable hints condemning the pagan conception of life after death," *

We see, then, that up to the very time of the coming of Jesus there was no specific or dogmatia conception of the after life which would present a sufficient matrix out of which that vast eschatolog- ical system could be created which in after ages, overshadowed all Christendom. It must be our task to find if we can the real source of this theology.

First then, did Jesus teach it; did he really present a vivid and absolute conception of the soul's immortality and resurrection? The King- dom of Grod or Heaven, which was so abruptly an- nounced at the advent of Jesus by John, was uni- versally understood among the Jews to refer to the promised restoration of the people of Israel from the thraldom of the Soman power to national estab- lishment. When Jesus re-interpreted that notion. as referring not to a political or a physical king- dom but to a spiritual state, he did not indicate that state was to come to pass beyond the grave, but in the life of those whom he addressed. The fig- urative language which the Jews then employed,, when describing the state of the soul, has been made to appear in these later times as symbolical

1 Monut, 12, p. 424.

162 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

of a future state of the individual soul; but all critical authorities agree that it referred to a spiritual state attainable in this life. The '^ eter- nal life'' referred to was the continual and unin- terrupted spiritual life of the body of the re- deemedy a fact to which we shall refer again in a latter chapter.

The great emphasis placed upon the doctrine of the immortality of the individual through faith is the distinguishing feature of Christianity. It had been fore-stated and suggested in many ways in preceding pagan religions, as we have seen, but curiously avoided in the Jewish religion which was the seed from which Christianity sprung. It is natural then that we should ask whence Chris- tianity acquired the knowledge of this doctrine and how it happened to find in it such genial soil as caused it to spring up and fructify as in no pre- ceding cult.

Paul, we know, was the first follower of Christ who produced any record of His history or wrote out His distinctive doctrines. It is then to Paul that we instinctively look to find if possible how this doctrine of immortality was introduced. In Paul's writing we are met at once with a seemingly impossible inconsistency. He insists in one place ^ that the resurrection of Jesus is a fact having already transpired; and professes to be astonished that there are any who question the occurrence. " Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no

1 II Cor. XV.

CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 168

lesnrrection of the dead!" Here Paul evidently proposes that the physical resurrection of Jesus prophesies the physical resurrection of all who be- lieve in Him. He establishes the entire faith of future Christendom on this one fact that Jesus rose from the grave in the body and ascended into heaven : on this fact he rests the only hope of salva- tion for the individual ** If Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain/' • . • for, ^^if there be no resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen?"

But elsewhere Paul disavows this very phys- ical resurrection on which he heretofore so earnestly insists. '^ Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Ood; neither doth corruption inherit inoorruption." *

If flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God then why does he refer to the physical resur- rection of Jesus as the proof of the coming resur* rection of the race! Here he suddenly makes a profession which to him is full of import for he prefaces it by declaring, " Behold, I show you now a mystery." The mystery to which he here refers is that of the immortal life. This was the secret doctrine of all the mythological mysteries of the pagan religions — Orphic, Mithraic, Eleusinian, Osirian. It was the one central fact in the religion of Orpheus and Dyonisus, which awakened the spiritual intoxication of the novitiate, and caused him to enter into such a state of mind as to make him susceptible to the reception of trances and hal-

11 Cor. xv: 60.

164 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

iQcixutions. Sef erring to thb fact Ramsay ^ says^ *^ It is obvioQS that the essential point on which the effect of the ceremony depended was that the mind of the initiated should be wrought up to a high pitch of eager, rapt expectancy and breath- less attention. Many means contributed to produce this state • • • The nine days' fast, very strictly observed, and the long march from Athens to Eleusis and the frequent religious ceremonies with which it was marked, the wanderings by night around the shores and plain of Eleusis with torches in search of the lost Cora — all tended to produce a strained enthusiastic state."

It is shown by all the writers on the ancient mys- teries that there was no didactic effort put forth by the mystagogues to instruct the novitiates and ini- tiates in the doctrine of immortality as a fact, but merely by pictures, panoramas and bewildering phantasmagoria to leave the suggestion in the mind of the possibilities of the after life. Therefore it still remained a profound and unsolved problem and mystery to them all.

Is it not to this same age-long and ever unsolved mystery that Paul here refers? A mystery he says which the princes and rulers of the earth had never known, for if they had they would not have crucified the Christ ^'We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery — which God ordained before the world unto our glory — which none of the princes of the world knew : for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory —

lEncy. Brit

CHEISTIAN CONCEPTION 166

• • . But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." ^

Paul refers to the fact that he is subject to hal- lucinations and trances, and that he saw Christ as one bom out of due time. When, then, he refers to the mystery which he explains as that magical event when all mankind shall be caught up in a cloud and all be changed in the twinkling of an eye, the corruptible putting on incorruption, and mortality, immortality, he apparently refers to the great mystery which had been the burden of all the pagan religions, but which for ages had been abrogated and almost forgotten, because it had be- come so corrupted and disgraced by licentious contamination.

Up to the very time of the coming of Christ this great allied truth had been withheld from the multitude and concealed in the dazzling spectacle of a worship whose central fact was a divine, be- wildering and insolvable mysteiy. Through the pen and mouth of Paul, this mystery was now re- vealed to all who would consecrate their lives to the Christ, whom Paul proclaimed the Saviour of the world. This was to Paul the mighty awakening which caused him to exclaim, '^ And without con- troversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory/' "

Every fact here enumerated was a feature of all

ilOor. ii:7. >ITIm. iii:16.

156 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the preceding pagan religions and displayed in the spectacular ceremonies of the temple-mysteries of each cult. It would seem then diat Paul must have had these in mind when he was discoursing on the mysteries^ and that he had imbibed from them glimpses of the immortal life.

For we must not overlook the fact that his con- ception of that life differed materially from the teachings of some of those who were associated with him in the college of the Apostles. He believed in an immediate liberation after death, whereas the others advocated merely a final resurrection.

He determined to preach the gospel to the Oentiles so that they could apprehend its meaning in the light of their accustomed religious knowl- edge. From this point of view let us study the re- markable passage from the epistle to Timothy just quoted. Paul exclaims, "Without controversy great is the mysteiy of godliness.'' What does he mean t If he referred to ordinary godliness, piety, worshipfulness, holiness, in the worship, he could scarcely have continued with the curious proposi- tions which follow. He is manifestly not re- ferring to the mystery of holiness or godliness in human beings, but in one whom he calls GknL But this God to whom he refers is an incarnate deity who had come in the flesh from heaven and then returned from whence he came. Evidently he is struggling with a conception which had seized vividly upon his mind, and which was at the same time familiar to him and to those to whom he addressed his epistle, although he felt he must enu-

CHEISTIAN CONCEPTION 167

merate in specific propositions just what he meant Now these enumerations are the peculiar and suggestive feature of this passage which compel a further study. Do they refer necessarily to the Palestinian Jesus^ or had they reference to a well known personage who had long since been recog- nized and apotheosized in the ancient and uni- versal mysteries of pagan religions?

We must recall that these mysteries had spread throughout the known world; that they were re- garded as divine and containing the sublimest over- tures to the sincere soul which religion could afford. None was so great, be he general, states- man, philosopher, or common citizen but he felt himself additionally honored by becoming an in- itiate in these mysteries. Only those properly fitted were allowed to enter; the corrupt, the de- based, the vicious were rejected, no matter how oonspicuous or distinguished they may have been. Alcibiades was rejected because of his licentious- ness and abandoned life; Nero, although an em- peror, was not permitted to witness the occult drama, because his hands were stained with the blood of his relatives, whom he had murdered. So holy, 80 sacred, so exclusive, so sublime and pure were these rites regarded, that nothing de- filed or corrupt could approach them. What was it, then, that these iharvelous mysteries were so carefully guarding; what was this momentous and divine fact, which was more carefully concealed than the Garden of Eden by the flaming sword after the expulsion of its first denizens ?

CHAPTER Xn

ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OP AFTER LIFE (continued)

All anthorities now admit that the one pio- found and unutterable secret^ concealed and guarded in the divine mysteriefl, was nothing other than the dream of the soul's release from the flesh at death, and the transformation of the conscious- ness of this earthly life into one that would be heavenly and divine. In short the apprehension of the soul's immortality and its continuous ex- istence after death, was the profound, the hallowed, the ineffable truth, which these hierophants so ef- fectually kept from the vulgar eyes of the carnal minded, and reserved only for the holy and spirit- ually inclined.

But the remarkable and suggestive feature of the mysteries is that the arcane doctrine of the immortality of the soul was originally associated with the apotheosis of an individual who always figured in each celebration, and who constituted the germ of that universal legend that culminated in the sublime mythos of the Palestinian hero. What was that myth? Paul insinuates it in this very passage : ** God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, preached unto the Gentiles," etc. The fact that the central ceremony of the mysteries was the exaltation of a conspicuous and sacred individual, who was regarded as a god, and

158

CHBISTIAN CONCEPTION 169

whose death and refiurrection were the occasion of the exultant celebration^ suffidentlj suggestB the origin of Paul's propositions. It is true that the myth is easily traced primarily to a nature wor- ship; to the moiurning of the hairesters at the sinking of the sun into the winter solstice^ and to their rejoicing when he returns again in his vernal glory; to the beautiful story of Persephone, who becomes the queen of the dead, and as such makes possible the return to life of all who descend into her realm, which is but the poetization of the solemn departure of autumn splendors and the in- spiring recrudescence of the vernal beauties; yet the primal origin of these celebrations had long been lost sight of and the imagined heroes who were adored in the ceremonies were believed to be as real as the Palestinian Jesus is to-day to the milions who adore Him.

The initiate who aspired to the arcane knowledge of the mysteries must himself enact the entire drama of the hero's apotheosis, his death and resurrection, his ascension and glorification, so that he himself feels all the glow of the victory of the honored deity.

Paul so perfectly reflects the marvels of this arcane drama in his mystical writings that it is impossible to believe he did not have them in mind.

^' So forcible and close is the correspondence between the course of the aspirant in his initia- tion — dramatically dying, descending into Hades, rising again to life, and ascending into heaven,—

160 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Avith the apostolic presentation of the redemptive career of Christ — that some writers — Nork, for instance — have suggested that the latter was but the exotic publication to the world of what in the former was esoterically taught to the initiates alone." ^

The natural coalition between the old faiths and the new cult which was inaugurated hj Paul is evidenced in the reproduction of the rites, cere- monies, names, vestments, and indeed every feature and ritual which appertained to them. Budge in his introduction to the Book of the Dead says: '^ When the Osiris cult disappeared before the re- ligion of the Man-Christ, the Egyptians who em- braced Christianity found that the moral system of the old cult and that of the new religion were so similiar, and the pramUea of resurrection and im- mortality in each so much alike, that they trans- ferred their allegiance from Osiris to Jesus of Nazareth without difficulty."

This religion of Osiris had prevailed for over five thousand years, and had penetrated the utter- most parts of the earth ; all religions had yielded to its overmastering influence and no form of temple worship, of phrase, of philosophy, but what was affected by it. It is not therefore possible that Paul was ignorant of the mystery which it un- locked and especially of the apotheosis, death and resurrectiiMi, of the central figure which it conse- crated. Paul speaks especially of this God who had come in the fiesh being '^preached to the

1 Alger, ''History of the Doctrine of Immortality.'*

CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 161

Ckntilefi/' showing that he had heard of Him while he sojourned among them.

But why should he insist that when the knowl- edge of the Christ-Man came to him he did not go up to Jerusalem to receive his instructions from the apostles or from any man; but he went first into Arabia and not till after three years did he see Peter for fifteen days, but saw none of the other apostles; receiving his knowledge or inspiration not '^ from flesh and blood ? " ^

He strongly intimates here that his knowledge came alone through his own spirit, for the spirit^ ually minded alone can apprehend the things of the spirit, as he insists; and being subject to halluci- nations or the intoxicating rhapsodies which were inculcated in the Dionysian mysteries, he wit* nesses during some such an ecstasy the vision of the risen Christ, which he henceforth feels it hi& bounden privilege and duty to proclaim.

Was it not in the experience of these ceremonies that Paul underwent tiiat sensation which caused him to believe that in the twinkling of an eye we should all be changed immediately after death?

We must not forget that this was not the common preaching of the apostles. They taught thf old Judaic notion of the final resurrection which was vaguely first portrayed by the prophet Daniel, during the captivity. The questions which are continually thrust at Christ by the dissenting or the doubting, always have reference to the resurreo^ tion wUch they apply to the after life. Such is the

iGaUtluis i: 15-18.

1»3 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

remark of Martha,^ and of the cunniiig lawyers who try to trip Jesus in Luke, xx : 33. Palpably, the Jewish conception of the after life had chiefly reference to the final resurrection. It connoted but little of that immediate restoration to glory and power of which Paul spoke so insistently. For his vision is wholly different ; it is more spectacular and resplendent. It reveals itself to him as the culmination of a '^ mystery."' All the faithful shall be suddenly aroused at the last trump from their sleep and in the twinkling of an eye, in mag- ical instantaneousness, shall be transformed from flesh into glorified spirits; where as they were corruptible and carnal now they shall be spiritual and incorruptible. Death is swallowed up in victory and liiey that were but mortal coils of flesh shall be transformed into immortal inhabitants of the skies. The picture that Paul here presents is most startlingly similar to a description of the fate of the dead as symbolised in the spiritual inculca- tion of the ancient mysteries, according to the most acceptable authorities. Alger quotes such a de- scription from Strobeeus which I will here re- produce to show the resemblance of the anticipa- tions of the future inculcated by the Eleusinian ceremonies, and those prophesied by PauL " The soul,'' he says, '^ is affected in death just as it is in the initiation into the great Mysteries; thing answers to thing. At first it passes through dark- ness, horrors and toils. Then are disclosed a

1 John zi : 24. «ICor. xv:61.

CHRISTIAUr CONCEPTION 168

wondrouB light, pure places, flowery meads replete with mjBtie sounds, dances and sacred doctrines, and holy visions. Then, perfectly enlightened, ihey are free: crowned, they walk about worship- ping the gods, and conversing with good men*''

To my mind it seems palpable that the concep- tion of immortal life whidi revealed itself to Paul, not through ^' flesh and blood " but alone through the spirit, came to him by association in some way with the ancient mysteries. Was not, indeed, Paul a hierophant of those mysteries, so long the secret possession of antiquity ; and because he came with a gospel which was acceptable and could be preached to the Gentiles, was he not therefore so bitterly opposed by the other apostles who wished to preach alone to the house of Israel t In other words, Peter and the rest knew no gospel except that which gave the hope of the resurrection and final judgment to Israelities alone, whereas Paul discerned the hope of personal salvation and immediate immortality for all — Greek, Jew, bar- barian, bond and free alike, who believed in the redeeming grace of the glorified lord of the mystery of godliness.

It seems quite evident that Paul was saturated with the imagery and convincing symbology of the Eleusinian Mysteries; for he introduces them frequently in his epistles. While the allusion is veiled and must be discerned between the lines it becomes very palpable once its presence is recog- nized. There was a specific Greek word always used in the Mysteries for the ^^ initiation." It

164 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

is ^*telety" — ^which means oompletioiu This word itself is not to be found in the New Testa- ment| but derivatiTes from it are. St Paul speaks frequently of the completion or realization of perfect man, using derivatives from the same root He says:^ Charity is the bond of our consecration (Meiotes) ; i e., the state of being in- itiated into the mysteries of the Christian religion* Christ is said to have tdcen the highest degree of initiation — ieleiotheis egeneto * — and it behooved Him to be initiated (Meiowi) through suffering; * the leader of initiation (teUiotes) ; and to the Corinthians, the Apostle proclaims that he teaches them, as the initiated (fofetot), the wisdom of God in a mystery/ The authorised version obliterates to a great extent the effect of the technical terms *^ initiated " and ** mystery/' but the sense is still there.*^

Paul shaped the entire thought of the early Church. His sect, which may justly be called the Pauline party, was originally opposed to and by the Nazarene sect of which Peter and James were the leaders. This latter was but an offshoot or schism in the Jewish Churdi accepting Jesus as the Messiah, and had but little influence, gradually go- ing into decline till it was overruled and denounced as an heretical body. When the Acts was written the Nazarene as an influential sect had fallen into

lOol. iii:li.

sHeb. ▼: 9.

tHeb.xii:2.

«I Cor. ii:6ff.

» Monut, Vol. n, p. 90.

STIAN CONCEPTION 165

disiepate and was regarded so heretical that it would not have been aafe to identify James and Peter with it. Therefore the writer of Acts makes Peter break away from the narrowness of the Mosaic creed^ insisting on drcnmcision, refusing the meat of idols, etc., and grants him an especial revelation from Heaven to assure him that he may invite the Gentiles into o^unmnnion and partake with them of their food, while not insisting that they shall submit to the Mosaic rites.

This as we learn from Paul's epistles, which were the original and first literature of the Church, was the programme which he had presented, contending that he had received his instruction direct from Jesus and was accountable to no man. Thus we see how he utterly overpowered all opposition and became the master mind of the pristine body of be- lievers.

Now, Paul alone introduces all these allusions to the Mystery and initiation. We have shown this already in the above quotations from his epistles. We shall soon see, from the writings of Clemens Alexandrinus in the second century, that intense opposition grew up against Paul because of this boastful claim of clairvoyant visions and revelations from heaven ; and that Clemens makes it very clear that Paul, whom he calls Simon Magus, was trying to introduce these Mysteries into the new faith, for he insists that in the true religion which Peter and James advocate Jesus Himself is the real Hierophant; implying that Paul's claim to be such is nothing in comparison. Clemens, we

166 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

learn spoke with great bitterness against these mysteries and the revelations which they were said to present to the initiated*

As we shall soon point out^ the real cause of con- tention between the Petrine and Pauline parties was that Paul was introducing Gentile doctrines of initiations and apocalypses by which salvation was attained^ whereas the Jewish party insisted that by circumcision and the Mosaic rites and the by works of the law came salvation. By the time that Matthew and the Book of Revelation were written evidently the Pauline idea had come to prevail and the Gospel was regarded as an arcane ''mystery'' which only the initiated could ap- prehend. For '' the word ' mystery ' is mentioned not only in the epistles but even in the Gk>epels^ and in Revelation.' In the days when the New Testament was written^ the term had no other meaning than that of the knowledge of the ' mys- tery' L e.^ of a person initiated into the rites of some deity, Demeter, Dionysus, or Orpheus; the modem and moral general sense of 'secret' was developed after the Greek mysteries fell into dis- use, when the significance of the term was no longer understood." •

Paul was evidently introducing a pagan doctrine which was perhaps first suggested to him through the teachings of Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, who incorporated Grecian mysticism into the Jewish

iMatt. ziii:ll.

«I, 20, xvii: 7.

s Monist, Vol. XI, p. 9a

CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 167

religion. Philo taught the whole system of justifi- cation by faith, and not by worics, for which Paul so insistently contended against the Jewish Chris- tiana.

Paul undoubtedly draws a dear distinction between the final resurrection and eternal judg- ment, which had become a Jewish doctrine well un- derstood by the priests of the synagogue ^ and the doctrine of the resurrection life in Jesus Christ* In the one conception the soul awaits the final day for judgment and the glory of redemption or the horror of reprobation. But in the other concep- tion he refers to the awakening of the redeemed soul to the consciousness of the life in Jesus, the life that ascends from the depths of bodily sin and fleshy degradation to the heights of spiritual illumination. This latter conception is the one which was determined and insisted upon by the hierophants of the Eleusinian and Dionysian temples. A deep and awe-inspiring silence settled on the initiates as they were receiving the rites, and a saving and healthy consciousness of their ab- sorption in a supernal life, beyond the gift of earthly powers. Plato declared that the initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries while contemplating the '^ phasmata " were becoming exalted in soul as he himself while contemplating the glory of the " Ideas," which were to him the embodiment of the eternal life. The redemption that follows initiation is precisely like Paul's promise of eternal life, through faith in Christ. ^' Is the salvation in

1 Acts zziv: 16, and Hebrews vi: 1, 2.

168 MODEBN LIGHT OJf IMMORTALITT

the fature life,'' says Dr. Samsay,^ 'Vhich is assured by initiation^ attained by mere ritualistic observances, or does it depend upon the effect pro- duced by initiation on the life and character of the initiated person ? . • • Plato . • • respects the Eleusinian Mysteries, which promise salvation as the reward of initiation, which can only be be- cause he believes that they promise it on grounds,'' other than mere ritualistic observance. • • • ^^ According to Sopater initiation establishes a kinship between the soul and the divine nature; and Theon Smymseus says that the final stage of initiation is a state of bliss and divine favor which results from it."

This, as well as language can which is not purely scriptural and Hebraic, states the very propositions of Paul that we find in his writings. Paul makes it very clear that his teachings concerning the eternal life are wholly different from those that were taught by the other apostles and in the synagogue. He says in Hebrews (vi:l, 2) that he desires to enjoin upon his followers that they must not be satisfied with the first principles of the teachings of the Christ, such as baptisms, laying on of hands, etc, namely mere observances of the ritual, but must pass on to perfection ; to the reali- zation of the divine favor and the eternal life. This, again, is precisely the injunction which the mystagogue, the teacher of the mysteries, enjoined upon the novitiate. Plutarch says : " Virtuous

1 Bncy. Brit, art. ** Mysteriea.**

CHBISTIAN CONCEPTION 169

sonlsy hy nature and the divine justieei rise from men to heroes, from heroes to genii; and if , as in the Mysteries, they are pnrified, shaking off the remains of mortality and the power of the passions, they attain the highest happiness, and ascend from genii to gods.'' ^

This is very similar to Panl's " If ye mortify the deeds of the flesh ye shall live; for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us, who are the sons of Qod," etc'

The ceremony of the mysteries all revolved around the death and return to life of some supreme hero. As we have already said the curious acts of worship, through which the initiate passed, were produced as a symbolic representation of the sufferings, death and restoration of the one who was adored. Now, one of the chief and efficient rites which was observed in the mysteries as indic- ative of the deep humility of the initiate, as well as of the suffering and death of the hero, was that of baptism. It is wholly wrong to suppose that this was a new and Christian custom. It prevailed in the esoteric phase of all the ancient religions, and in the Mysteries stood for something specific and effective. Eef erring to the Mysteries of the Mithraic religion TertuUian contemptuously re- marks, '^ He (the priest of Mithra) baptizes his be- lievers and followers; he promises the remission of

1 Lives, Romulus, quoted by Alger, " Hist, of Immortality,^ p. 471. 3 Romans viii.

170 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

sins at the sacred fount, and thus initiates them into the religion of Mithra." ^

Dr. Lundj in his '^ Monumental Christianity " admits that the rite of Baptism was ** a universal custom" among all the ethnic religions. Yet we do not find in any of the writings of the ancients any explanation assigned for the efficacy of the rite, or a statement given of its profound meaning. We only know that it was administered always at the initiation of the candidate and that it was sup* posed to be effective in purification and illumina- tion of the soul.

But in the writings of Paul we find an explana- tion which appears to be given with authority and understanding. It does not seem to the present writer that Paul's description can be construed as relating exclusively to the Christian rite of baptism, because its reference is so clearly to the universal Mythos, to the national apotheosis of some hero around whose mysterious death and resurrection gathered the sublime cultus of each age. But his description chimes so perfectly with all that we are permitted to know of these ancient Mysteries, that it would seem it must have grown out of them, and been perhaps the first free divulgence to humanity of the age-long secret which had been at once the aspiration and despair of the multitude. It is also to be noted that whenever Paul refers to this great fact he calls it " the mystery," to which I shall again shortly refer.

Now his explanation and interpretation of the

1 " De Praescrip.," XI, quoted in Doane's " Bible Myths."

CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 171

Mystefy of Baptism we find in Bomans vi as fol- lows : ^' Enow ye not that so many of ns as our baptized into Jesus Christ are baptized into His death! Therefore we are bnried with him by baptism into death: that as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we shall also walk in newness of life.'' Pindar says: ^^ Happy those who, having seen this spectacle [the Eleusinian Mysteries] descend into the depths of earth ; they know the end of life and its divine origin."

Each step of the ceremony of the ancient Mys- tery is clearly set forth in ^is statement of Paul and its occult meaning for the first time revealed. The divulgence of this secret was criminal in the old times and the offender would suffer capital punishment. JSschylus was set upon by a mob and almost lost his life because they thought he had intended to reveal this secret in one of his playSy and merely saved himself by proving that he had never been initiated. Paul, indeed seems to fully realize that he has made a great divulgence by the fervor of his words and the boldness of his spirit This especially appears in his letter to the EphesianS; where he says (iii) ^^I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Oentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery • • . which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the

172 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise I17 Christ in the Gospels. • . • Unto me, who am lees than the least of the saints, is the grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery/* etc.

The conclusion which I think may be drawn from this lengthy discussion is that the notion of the after life crept into the Christian religion first by way of the vague Jewish belief in the resurrection, and the interpretations of the same made by -the gospel writers and attributed to Jesus Christ They make him refer to both the resurrection and the eternal life, but in both references make it very apparent that the eternal life, as we shall soon show, refers only to the inner spiritual development and not necessarily to a life beyond the grave ; while th4 resurrection referred to is the final judgment to which all shall arise. But Paul seems to introduce a distinctive interpretation, namely that of the im- mediate deliverance and purification of the soul after death, which seems to have come to him by association with the mystagogues and hierophants of the ancient, pagan mysteries. Therefore what views may have been presented by the Christian religion relative to the after life were not original or unique, nor in aught different from what had already been taught through the ages. But be- cause they were emphasized with such human sen- timent and sincere enthusiasm they fastened them- selves on the heart of mankind and seemed to

CHEISTIAN CONCEPTION 173

aasiime a new and nnaocustomed phase. The fatore life seemed to be brought nearer to the htunan race, to be looked forward to with sineerer anticipation by the followers of Christy for the very reason that Christ Himself, as portrayed in the Gospels, seemed to be nearer to the htunan heart and more reliable than the heroes of the ancient Mythos which all religions had honored.

He, as pictured by the apostles, was a human beings natural^ fellowshiping with his human kindred, practical, immediate, approachable. But the myllhheroes around whom gathered the cults of antiquity were always pictured as distant, artificial, unhuman, planetary and unapproachable.

Therefore Jesus has ever seemed closer to us than any divinity of whom the race has yet con- ceived. Closer than Jove or Jehovah, than Buddha or KriRhna. He is a brother, friend, saviour, re- deemer. He is ever present They were judicial, extra-natural, majestic, overweening, feaivinspiring. Jesus symbolizes love and friendship. They sym- bolize terror and estrangement.

Hence the words of Jesus and his apostles con- cerning the after life seem to us more real and as- suring, more actual and attainable than those of any religious teachers the world has yet known. But we shall see that even their promises and antic- ipations were vague and indefinite, and left such an impression on their followers for many centuries. For we may well ask what did Christ and his dis- ciples mean by the Eternal Life ?

CHAPTER Xni

CHRISPS CONCEPTION OF IMMORTAL

LIFE

Are we to conclude that the conception of individual immortality, — a notion so prevalent in our age, — had no place in the precepts of Jesus t Shocking as it seems to be at first, it must be ac- cepted as a fact that the outlook and forecast of the life of the soul presented to us by Jesus referred entirely to the present life and the possibilities of the soul's growth in its union with the divine prin- ciple. Jesus looked but little beyond the grave; His chief if not only concern was with this life.

The first objection to this conclusion will arise in the mind when contemplating the version of the Judgment, as depicted in the dramatic parable in Matthew xxv* This passage has for many cen- turies been interpreted as though it referred to the great Day of the Lord, commonly known as the Final Judgment, when some shall pass to eternal life and some to eternal death. On its face the parable seems to sustain this view. But observe that it is the last of a series all of which refer to the Kingdom of Qod or the Kingdom of Heaven. We have already called attention to the fact that the Jewish idea involved in this expression was that of the earthly Kingdom when Righteousness through Israel or the Jewish Nation shall prevail over the earth t He has been illustrating the King-

174

CHRIST'S CONCEPTION 1T6

dom bj the five wise and foolish yirgins; by the seirant who had five talents^ and being thrifty earned five more, and the servant who had one talent and foolishly hid it in the ground ; and leaves the vivid impression on the reader that by devotion to dnty and noble ideals the prize of the kingdom and power will be attained. No reference is here made to any after life whatsoever; the emphasis is palpably on the present burdensome and prob- lematic life which manHnd are now enduring. Then suddenly He says : ^^ When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon His throne in glory," dividing all the nations and people of the earth into sheep and goats, according to the nature of their moral lives, whether they have been prompted by selfishness or sympathy with those in need, and despatching those who have not done rightly ^^into everlasting pimishment, but the righteous into life eternal."

It is a well-known fact that the Apostles and Jesus Himself anticipated the immediate advent of the Kingdom of Heaven. He was expected to return before the generation passed away which He was then addressing, and when He made His second advent He would be ^^ the Son of God in all His glory."

The manifest meaning as we shall see to be placed on this passage is not that it describes a post mortem condition of individual existence, but that it refers to the state of the world when Jesus shall return as Eing and rule with the power of

176 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Righteousness. When Jesus mokes reference to the Resurrection, as in his conversation with Martha, He does not intimate that He is casting a far look to some final and world-pregi^uit event, but caknly says, I am the Resurrection and the Life. That is, I am now living the life of the resurrection, in the glorified state of My soul, and whosoever follows Me, pursues the same manner of life that I do, — " shall not see death."

A careful examination of the significant conver- sation which takes place between Jesus and the Pharisees, and that which follows with the dis- ciples in Matthew xiz will reveal the fact that Christ's idea of the eternal life referred absolutely to the state of righteousness in the soul and the glory that would prevail when His kingdom oveiv ruled the earth. They have been putting puzzling problems with reference to marriage in heaven and the intricacies of divorce, when suddenly one comes to Him and says, ^^ Good Master, what must I do that I may have eternal life } '' He enjoins him that he must keep all the commandments and hav- ing done this if he be rich to give away his all to the poor. At this he despairs and the disciples are amazed, asking ^^ Who then can be saved t " As if to say, ^^Can such an earthly ideal ever be at- tained I "

In another place when the disciples exhibit an ambitious spirit and seek from Him knowledge as to what their reward in heaven shaU be because of their personal sacrifice, He says again, ^' In the generation when the Son of Man shall sit on His

CHRISrS CONCEPTION 177

throne of glory, ye shall sit upon the twelve thrones," etc Evidently He here referred to the Kingdom which He expected to establish after He had gone to the Father and fulfilled His present mission. The resurrection to which Jesus every- where seemti to refer is His return to earth to establish the Kingdom of Gk^d. Paul likewise makes reference to the same anticipation in Thessalonians. There has been perplexity of spirit among the communicants of Thessalonica because some of their number have died before the return of Jesus to establish His Kingdom and it is feared that they will therefore have no part in its glory. Paul writes to assure them : " I would not have you ignorant concerning them that are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others that have no hope. • . • For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven • . • and this we say unto you by the word of the Lord that we which are alive and re- main unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [have any advantage over] them which are asleep, but shall be caught up together with them in the clouds," etc

The meaning of this is so palpable that it admits of no question. Paul expected to be still on earth when Jesus returned as well as most of his fol- lowers. The only meaning that can then attach to his promise *^ and so then shall ye be ever with the Lord '* — is that they will continue as long as they breathe to enjoy the life of the Lord, the spirit of the Lord, the consciousness of the Lord's presence, the resurrection-life.

178 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Without a question every reference to the King- dom of Ood or the Kingdom of Heaven^ which is made by Jesus in the Gospel writings, has reference to an approaching heavenly state on this planet or some earthly paradise. Only because, by the in- heritance of the ages, we have been accustomed to read into these expressions a conception of an after- death condition, a heaven attainable only beyond the grave, have we missed the manifest intention of the Teacher of Galilee in what He persistently expounds concerning aii ideal human kingdom, which He believed He had inaugurated. If this be not so then why did John the Baptist so exult- antly exclaim "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is ai hand!'* Not some state to be awaited after we have shu£9ed off this mortal coil, but attainable now if we but obey the law of jus- tice, which in Biblical terminology was entitled '^ righteousness '7 Moreover, as if to leave no question in the minds of His hearers as to the date of His approaching kingdom, Jesus Himself after His baptism by John insists also that everybody shall repent for the Kingdom is at hand. It is im- mediate, impending, imminent.

In some of these passages the reference to an approaching earthly condition is so manifest that we marvel how they could ever have been misinter- preted. In Matthew xi : 12, Jesus is enjoining his disciples to prepare themselves for the King- dom by humility, gentleness and mercy to all, and, by contrast, reminds them that formerly the con- ception of force, vengeance, retaliation, had been

CHEIST^S CONCEPTION 179

inculcated by the law and the prophets, as the method by which the Kingdom of Heaven could be attained. Bat He tells them not by force but by sympathy shall the Kingdom be established. Certainly here He casts no far-away glance at a millennial heavenly period, but regards an im- mediate and approaching condition of the earthly social lifa Again in the 20th verse of the eleventh chapter of Luke, where Jesus is recorded as arguing against the Pharisees who challenge the authority of His voice because He heals the sick through the power of Beel^bub, He retorts that '' If wiih. the finger of God He casts out devils, no doubt the Kingdom of God is come'' to them. Certainly this is a reference to an immediate or an already existing state and not to one beyond the grave. If the Kingdom of God be come already to them through the healing of the sick and the casting out of devils from among them, then they need wait for no distant period beyond death to realize its establishment.

Without however reviewing the many more passages which carry with them the same import, there is one which should silence all objections to the interpretation of Christ's prophecy concerning the Kingdom which we are seeking to emphasize. I refer to the 28th and 29th verses of the twelfth chapter of Matthew. He had been holding a lengthy and most profound session with his over- mastered disciples. They had come nearer his heart than before and with unusual confidence had ventured to ask him concerning the deeper secrets

180 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

of the ^^ Mysteries of the Kingdom." They wished to learn why he always spake to the multitude in the image of parables, but in private revealed to them the deeper meaning which was concealed from the world without Suddenly Jesus breaks to them His consciousness of the impassioned mission for which He believes He has come to earth, and in whispered solenmity reveals the painful secret of his souL He feels that He is already under the shadow of death. He knows that He must suffer at the hands of those who will persecute and crucify Him for his delusion, and yet ere it come to pass He must tell His spiritual confidants, so that when it occurs, they shall know how to conduct themselves. He has just been telling Peter with an extraordinary outburst of exultant appreciation of his good offices, that He will give to him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and that what he binds on earth shall also be bound in heaven; plainly intending, as we must believe from what immediately follows, that he shall have such supreme power in the exercise of his spiritual energies that they will override aU material and temporal forces; and then a moment later says that He must go to Jerusalem and in- augurate the Kingdom by being persecuted by the Scribes and Pharisses and finally killed by them. Whereat, Peter, evidently discerning His meaning, that He must die in order that they may enter the Kingdom — doubtless thinking of the far-away resurrection, referred to by the Prophets and the Rabbis — cries out to prevent His attempting anything so rash and fantastic ; when Jesus at once

CHRISrS CONCEPTION 181

enrses him^ and then makes the astounding state- ment not only that the Son of Man shall come in His glory with all the angels to reward everyone according to the deeds done in the body, but that there were some then standing in His presence who would not taste death till they had witnessed the glorified scene and beheld the inauguration of the golden age of justice and truth, mercy and honor.

Of course no such reference could be made to a Kingdom whose inauguration mnrt be looked for- ward tOy millions of years hence and in another realm of existence.

Once more, we find an affirmation of Jesus in Matt xxii : 80 which again seems to make His meaning clear, yet which for ages has been appar- ently misinterpreted because of our hereditary mis- conception of the eternal life. The doctors of the law are taunting Him with problems of the resur- rection life, and He rebukes them by saying that they themselves do not understand the Scriptures which they quote, for there is no marriage (about which they have been inquiring) in the resurrec- tion, where " They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but ar^ as the angels of Ood in heaven/^ He does not affirm that *^ They of the resurrection " are " angels of God in heaven,*' but in respect of marriage like them. That is, as we may assume, the pure spiritual forms, which the heavenly host constitute, have no physical func- tions, but intercommunicate by mere ethereal vi- brations; so they who believe in Him and live the life He displays will likewise know each other in

183 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMOKTALITT

the spirit more effectually than thej can in the body; that there are soul-marriages, the blending of tiie mind with the divine principle, the merging of all in the consciousness of the divine essence — an experi^ice long known or at least professed by mystics and occultists.

An intimation of the arcane notion here presented by Jesus was still more emphasized in another pas- sage ^ where He is discoursing on the problem of marriage and divorce. He has just been saying that if a man leave his ^if e for any other reason than fornication he commits adultery. His disci- ples in despair falter at this declaration and say, if His words are true, then it were not good for man to marry ! At which he replies : ^^ All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given." Now why! From what follows He plainly intimates that while a man who finds his wife disagreeable has no right by His authority to leave her, yet he must learn the art of still con- tinuing to live with her, but by freeing himself from such intimacy as demands bodily contact. In short, they must learn how to assume the attitude of the eunuch. " There are some eunuchs which are so bom from their mother's womb; and some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.''

Here it seems to us that the meaning is so dear there can be no dispute. Those who live in the Kingdom must first of all live the life of justice.

iMatt. xix: 12.

CHEIST'S CONCEPTION 183 ,

Therefore to put a wife away for any reason oth^ than for fornication is equivalent to adultery. So He insists. This right is denied in the Kingdom* Henoe for the Kingdom's sake, do not violate it by divorcing your wife because of any other thau the one extreme reason, but make of yourself a eu- much — learn to live in spiritual communion and social peace with your wife, and disclaim the usual functions of the conjugal life. So, in ac* cord with His teaching elsewhere as pointed out above, He might have continued " Live together like the angels of God in heaven, by neither tak- ing nor giving each other in marriage (that is^ avoiding the physical relation), and contemplate always the face of your Father which is in Heaven/^ That is, live so much in the spirit that ye will forget the flesh. What wonder he closes these recondite and vaguely suggestive logia with the in- different injunction, " He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.'* It seems all too clear that when Jesus refers to the Eesurrection He impliea the spiritual life, the life of the soul in God, the life that continually contemplates and emulates the life divine.

Again, as if to reinforce the recondite reference to the occult life. He says, " As touching the resur- rection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God t * I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ; God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' " This is commonly so interpreted as to make Jesus imply that those persons must still have been living in His time^

184 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

and therefore that He believed in a continued life after death. But taken in connection with the en- tire discussion it seems perfectly apparent that He meant thej were the chosen souls of Israel^ the spirits who lived in especial and continual com- munion with the spirit of Ood, and therefore they had become the spiritual cynosure of the ages. Theirs was the life eternal; the only eternal life being in the consciousness of the presence of the spirit of the Father. In the same tenor he says: '** I am the vine and ye are the branches ;" " Verily I flay unto you that whosoever heareth My word and keepeth it hath [not shall have] everlast- ing life, and hath passed from death unto life; whoso findeth Me findeth life ;" " Search the Scrip- tureSy for in them ye think ye have eternal life;'' (that isy while drinking from the spiritual fount of the Word of Life ye feel the consciousness of the life eternal) ; and finally, as if to cap the climax of certainty and leave no space for doubt, he cries ^Glorify Thy Son . . • that He should give Sternal Life to as many as thou hast given Him ; and this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou Iiast sent.''

Clearly then in all the teachings and sayings of Jesus, in all His reference to the Kingdom, the Besurrection, the life Eternal ; He was not glanc- ing afar at some dreamy paradise, some fanciful and imaginary state of incomprehensible bliss or at a dismal Tartarus where souls would forever be consumed in unquenchable flames. His one and

CHMSPS CONCEPTION 185

only attempt is manifestly to prepare His disciples for the burden and strain of this life; for the sor- rows and struggles which shall await them when they go forward to contemplate the invisible bat ever accompanying Presence of whom He has so earnestly taught them ; for the power to prove that they who live in the freedom of the truth can never be enslaved, howsoever thick be the prison walls or the iron bars that confine them ; that living the life of conscious union with God they are now attaining all the bliss and joy and power which some had thought was the heritage of those only who had crossed the dark gulf of death.

CHAPTER XIV

PAUL AND THE DOCTRINE OF ETEENAL

LIFE

The more fuUj we investigate this interesting subject the more thoroughly are we convinced that Paul was introducing into the teachings of Chris- tianity a doctrine foreign and offensive to the orig- inal apostles and to the early Jewish Christians. There is something very obscure and mystifying in the relation that exists between Paul and the rest of the apostles. From what little we can read be- tween the lines of the Gospel narratives by the in- timations presented) we are led to believe that Paul was a sort of persona non grata in the apostolic college; but whether because of jealousies arising from his superior qualifications, or because of fear that his teachings were perversive of those of Jesus, or because they perceived that he had learned from some source the secret of a strange and most recondite "mystery/' it is difficult positively to determine. It is sufficient, however, to observe that there is no question whatever of the intensest sort of a personal altercation having taken place between him and some of the apostles, and that there is good ground for the belief that the opposition to him arose from all the above reasons mingled in due proportion. It would seem that the original and authentic testimony of Paul concerning his enter- ing into the faith in Christ is told by himself in

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PAUL AND THE ETEENAL LIFE 187

the epistle to the Galatians. By the best critics this epistle is admitted to be one of the first, if iu* deed, as many of the best critics contend, not his very earliest. He breaks forth at once in defense of his apostolic authority, manifestly feeling grieved that his apostleship has been called in ques- tion, and determining to recall his former adher- ents, who had apparently deserted him because of the antagonism of the other apostles. As we have already noted, in this epistle he distinctly disclaims all dependence for his knowledge of Jesus and the Christ on any human source, disciples of Jesus or others. He claims absolutely that he was taught his gospel directly by revelation from Christ him- self. He elsewhere tells us the manner of receiv- ing this revelation, which was by visions and dreams.

It is impossible for one to read intelligently the 12th chapter of II Cor., wherein Paul glories in one who saw things in Paradise when he was lifted up into the third heaven, whether in the body or out he could not say, ^' and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter,'' and not feel that this claim of his to possess superior spiritual authority, because of his mediumistic pow- ers, which enabled him to see and hear '^ gods,'' was the actual bone of contention between him and the other followers of Jesus. I shall try to show you, what I think has never yet been fully exploited by any commentator, that Paul proves in this chapter that this claim of his to see visions, to come in close contact with the invisible world through his clair-

188 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Yojant discernment, was the real or at least the most strenuous cause of his conflict with the other apostles, and that the difference arising from the discussion relating to ** circumcision " and the in- vitation to the Gentiles was but incidental and of minor consequence. Paul is here glorying with the most intense satisfaction in his admitted superior- ity, and the fact that his followers are willing to accept his protestations of superior spiritual pow- ers and therefore to believe him to be a true apostle of Jesus. But he suddenly halts, thinking per- haps he has boasted too much, and some might think of him above what he really is or what rumor may declare. He is not afraid that he will be misjudged, however, for he confesses that '^ Lest he should be exalted above measure through the abundance of his revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh,'' etc (v. 7). It is surprising that there has been so much mystification thrown around this expression of ^' a thorn in the flesh,'' when it is very apparent, if we read this passage in connection with history elsewhere narrated, its meaning is beyond question. Paul states in the words immediately following in this passage what the thorn in the flesh really was. He says it was ^^ the Messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure." Who was this '^ Mes- senger of Satan t " The gospel narratives do not state save by bare insinuation, neither does Paul; but contemporary history does. I think it can plainly be shown that the ^^ thorn in the flesh," the

PAUL AND THE ETERNAL LIFE 189

'* Messenger of Satan/' was none other than Simon Peter.

It will be remembered that in this first of the Pauline epistles to the Galatians Paul says with much vehemence that when Peter came to Antioch to preach he accosted him with the charge that he was a dissembler, playing fast and loose with the Mosaic usages among the Jews and Gentiles that he might curry favor with both. He accuses Peter of having yielded to the influence of some of the disciples who were partisans of James, the brother of Jesus, and clearly shows that a great gulf had been dug between him and the other apostles. He also states that Barnabas yielded with the other dis- ciples to the false teachings of James and went astray. Now this whole quarrel is glossed over in the Acts of the Apostles, and not a hint of it is given in the Gospel writings. All we find relating to it is in Acts zv where it is merely stated that an altercation took place between Paul and Barnabas when the latter proposed to take Mark with them on their missionary journey through Asia Minor. Paul separated from them because of MarL Now we know that Mark was the recorder and friend of Peter, and that his gospel is supposed to be Peter's interpretation of the career and teachings of Jesus. In fact in several places in the Acts it is made to appear that a perfect understanding existed be- tween Peter and Paul, and that the entire college of Apostles approved of Paul and his friend Silas and gave them letters of credit for their far jour-

190 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

neys among the churches. It presents a scene where Peter learns by a vision from heaven that God is no respecter of persons and that the Gentiles have as much right to the privileges of the Gospel as the people of Israel, etc (Acts x: 11, 15, 20) ; it even intimates that Peter had special revelations from heaven to prove that his apostleship was intended for the Gentiles. (^^Men and brethren ye know how • • • the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospels. • • • Acts xv : 7. ) Whoever wrote the Acts manifestly undertook to patch up a peace between Paul and Peter so that their mighty names might not seem to be the source of schisms in the historical churcL There- fore the real quarrel that existed among them was buried by the power of the church for many centuries and has only recently come to Ught

When we learn, however, that the book known as the Acts of the Apostles had not ^ined general acceptance even as late as 407 A, D. when St. Chry- sostom referring to it in his homilies said that it '^ was unknown to many," that not only was it generally unknown but that none knew ^^ who wrote it and put it together," we are able to read into the past the source from which the woi^ emanated, and what its manifest mission in the Christian church has been. Such critics as Bauer, Schweg- ler, and Zeller ^^ show it to be the work of a Pauline Christian, who, in order to conciliate the two hostile Christian parties, endeavored to make Paul re-

PAUL AND THE ETERNAL LIFE 191

semble Peter and Peter resemble Paul as mucli as possible." *

But notwithstanding this gloss in the Acts which for BO many centuries has served its purpose in blotting from the historic memory the existence and the cause of the great quarrel between Paul and Peter, or Paul and the entire Apostolic Col- lege, the fact is ineradicably recorded by Paul him- self in his epistles to the Galatians, which was in- disputably written about 50 A.D. and in language so vehement and virulent that it cannot be mis- construed.

Hence we rightly conclude that Paul denounced Peter as the thorn in the flesh, the Messenger of Satan whom he felt was ever persecuting and pur- suing him throughout his career.

But that fact in itself is not so important to us in our study as is the cause itself which brought about this terrible altercation with its subsequent historical consequences. What was the cause? Was it the mere fact that Peter and Paul differed about the rite of circumcision and whether it should be imposed on the professing Gentiles? I think manifestly it was not. That was merely the gloss that was put forth in the Acts that the world might be deluded and the strange suggestive reality be if possible expunged from the memory of man. All we need do to learn the actual cause is to return again to this tale-telling Galatians-epistle, where manifestly Paul himself reveals it. For does he not

1 Crit. Examination of Qospel Hist.» p. 205. LongmaDa, Green 9^ Co.

192 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Bay that all the joj which he has is in his glorifica- tion of that man, not the ordinary Paul, but that Paul who saw visions, and procured revelations, while he was in paradise, in the third heaven, and heard things that were not to be uttered in the hearing of man? This was what he gloried in.

This was what made him superior to the other apostles. This was what made his gospel so ao- ceptable to the Gentiles; and clearly enough, this also was what caused him to be pursued and per- secuted by ^' The Messenger of Satan," which as we shall see is Simon Peter, the apostle.

There is a passage in the Clementine Homilies, referring to this problem, written in the middle of the second century, which is only about half a century after the death of the apostle John, that oorroborates the contention I am presenting. He says of Peter in this notable discussion, review- ing its entire history, that he cried out against Paul in this manner, ^^He who had sent us, our Lord and Prophet, declared to us that the evil one • • • announced that he would send from amongst his followers apostles to deceive. There- fore, above all remember to avoid every apostle, teacher, or prophet, who first does not actually compare his teachings with that of James who is called the brother of the Lord," etc.^

The entire homily makes it very apparent that Peter intends by this insinuation none other than Paul, whom he calls Simon (possibly to make him appear as one with or as bad as Simon Magus).

1 " Supernatural Religion," Vol. II, p. 35.

PAUL AND THE ETERNAL LIFE 198

But in this homilj we learn the reason why Peter 80 vehemently denounces Paul and it is because ^ Paul maintains that he has a truer appreciation of the doctrines and teachings of Jesus because he has received his inspiration by supernatural visian, and not by common experience of the senses.'^ ^

^^Can anyone in visions become wise in teach- ing?" contemptuously ones Peter. . . • ^* How can we believe your story that He appeared to you, when you hold opinions contrary to His teaching! • • • For you now set yourself up against me who am a firm rock, the foundation of the church." •

Elsewhere Peter exclaims : ** Thou pretendest that one attains to a better understanding of things by means of visions than by direct communication, and that thou art better informed than I am of all that r^ards Jesus. . . • On the contrary he who puts faith in visions, does not know what he be- lieves in; in fact it might be a demon, or a de- ceiving spirit, who pretended to be that which he was not. . . • Besides, it is not possible dur- ing sleep to investigate the things we would wish to; the thou^its of the sleeper are not in his power." •

The manifest cause of the conflict between Peter and Paul was his claim to having received the vi- sions on which he asserts his authority over the entire apostolic college. In short, Paid put him-

^ /B.y p. as.

s Ih., p. 3S.

B*< Critical BzaminatSon of the Gospel Hietories," 1S9 (LoDgnumfl, Green A Co.)>

194 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITY

self forth as an hierophant of the '^ mysteries^'' who had been permitted to see the ever wondrous reve- lations which none but the epoptss ever beheld in the Eleusinia. Paul insists that he is so positive of his Qospel that though an angel from heaven came to preach any other he would be anathema. He has seen not as the flesh reveals, but only as the spirit Kow, this very vision which the epopts of the mysteries alone were permitted to see was itself a source of much solicitation to the fathers of the church and entered into the Gnostic philos- ophy and the early heresies very extensively. The vision which they claimed to behold was that of God; the truth; and especially the truth concern- ing God. The vision always came as a ^' light.^' ^

Momsen says Manes, the founder of the Gnostic sect of the Manichs&ans, conceived that ^^ The God who governs the world of light is, as it were, an im- mense sun, and consists wholly of the purest light," etc.' The Yalentinians called initiation ^ light.' The enjoyment of this light was the revelation of the epoptSB. Psellus (Ad. Oraa Zorast) says that epopty was attained when the initiated person was allowed to behold the Divine Light. One of the precepts given by Zoroaster was to obtain the mani- festations of the " Divine Glory." Porphyry says that the Gnostics boasted that they had revelations from Zoroaster.'

These facts naturally remind us of John's ref-

1 Grit Ex. Gos. Hist., 202.

s Hist, of Christianity, Vol. II, p. 287.

• Crit. Ex. Gob. Hist, p. 202.

PAUL AND THE ETERNAL LIFE 196

erenoe to ^^ The light that lighteth every man that oometh into the world.'' Beferring to John the Baptist, he Bays : ^^ The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light • • • He was not the li^tf but was sent to bear witness of the Li^t" Jesns is frequently referred to as '^ The Light of the World I' ; when he was transfigured he shone as a white light; and when Paul was oon- ▼erted, according to Acts ix, he saw Jesus as a great white light shining round about him.

These epopties, then, or revelations of the light of God, were not only the secret vision of the ancient or Eleusinian mysteries, but were also occasional privileges enjoyed by those of the early Christian faith. It was Paul's claim to this great privilege and enjoyment, and the consequent power which he claimed it endued on him, that made him the bone of contention, the cause of the great schism in the apostolic college.

Evidently, the claim which Paul first put forth and because of which Peter so boldly opposed him, was afterwards devoutly embraced by the future church as one of the great blessings to be bestowed on the f aithfuL While Paul was first abused for insisting that he had seen such a vision and through it great power had come to him, when the Acts was written, Peter, as we have above shown, had come to make a similar claim and in later times it was held forth as the sublime revelation that would come to those who are f aithfuL In fact, Clemens of Alexandria rests his most powerful exhortation to a blind disbeliever, who is evidently an initiate in

196 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the '^ Mjsteries " to come to ChriBt that he may enjoy a real and genuine epopty. He says : '* The Lord acts as hierophdint in ihsse mysteriee. He marks with his seal the initiated person whom he has ilhmiined with his light. • • • These are y my mysteries and my orgies. Become initiated, and yon will form with the angels the retinue of that God who has never been bom and who will never die — the only true God."

Here the reference to the Eleusinian mysteries is so manifest it cannot be disputed. They were evi- dently well known to the leaders of the early church. Their true secret was not dishonored or held as d^raded by them. Clemens calls them '^ a mys- tical drama." Paul's proof that he had seen ibe Light seemed sufficient to convince the fathers and to compel them to emulate him.

In Paul's vision he caught the idea that eternal life meant living in the spirit of God ('' If we live in the spirit let us also walk in the spirit ") ; that resurrection consisted in the ascent of the conscious- ness of the soul to the consciousness of God ; hence he knew no man after the fledi, and enjoins his disciples that thou^ they may have known Christ after the flesh, no more will they thus know him ; ^ that the ^' resurrection " was to be planted in the likeness of Christ's death " in order that ** we shall also be in likeness of his resurrection; knowing that being once dead to sin the power of death has no more dominion over one." All this Paul claimed that he had learned in the vision of the

in Oor. ▼: 16.

PAUL AND THE ETERNAL LIFE 197

transportiiig apocalypse whiok revoliitioniced his life and made him immortal among men.

But this interpretation was ezaotly opposed to the old Judaic conception of the resarrection that the rest of the Apostles thai hdd, namely^ that all men were inomortal and shall appear at the last day for final judgment and receive their due rewards and puniflhmoits.^ Paul, who more similarly than any other apostle, seems to echo the teaching of Jesus in the nature of the Kingdom of God and the Besur- rection of Life, in his letter to the Philippians (iii:12) apparently makes it very clear that ihey both meant to intimate by those terms noth- ing more than an exalted state of the soul while still residing in this tabernacle of the flesh. He is writing to the Philippians an autobio- graphical epistle and setting forth the real reason that he had to glory in the obedience of his life, while a Pharisee, to the Mosaic law; but that he counts all this as nothing compared to the glory which he has in Jesus Christ. " For whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, • • • that I may

a ** In the first three evangelists we find * eternal life ' repre- sented as the object and destiny of znan. . . . The resur- rection of the dead precedes it. It therefore comprises the whole future of the disciple of Christ, his full reward. ( Reward in^ heaven^ and eternal punithmeni ) . . . • While, however, life everlasting thus belongs to the future, we must not foiget that, aooording to PauVs eapo^itian, it appears in its essence indissoluble connected with our present Ufe. ... In the early times (of Christianity) * eternal life' was represented only as future happiness, to be fully accom- plished only after the resurrection and the judoment of the world." MeClintock ft Strong, Qyclo. of Rel. I^rature, pp. 314, 315, pasBim.

198 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.'* If this were the end of his address there would seem to be an implication that he was here referring to some after-death state to which he aspired. But the words that immediately follow would seem to leave such an implication not only irrelevant, but impossible. He continues : ^^ Not as though I had already attained [the resurrection of the dead], either were already perfect" There can be but one inference. He is not contemplating a distant and speculative future possibility beyond death, but a state of the soul at present, which is now attainable, but the passage to which is through such earthly suffering that one who seeks it virtually becomes as one dead before he can rise in its resurrected real* ization. Paul pictures himself as one now press- ing toward the mark of the high calling of Jesus Christ; not as one who has already apprehended the goal, but who sees it directly before him and is running with the enthusiasm and anticipation of the athlete who expects at any moment to hold it in his victorious hand. Paul and Christ plainly mean when referring to the Besurrection the rising of the individual from the consciousness of the flesh to the consciousness of the soul, and to mys- tical union with the Divine Essence.

CHAPTER XV

PAUL AND THE DOCTEINE OF THE

RESUBRECTION

That the Pauline doctrine of mystical union with Christy as the true conception of eternal life and the resurrection, finally overmastered the entire body of the early believers, is made evident by tracing the conditions of the early church. In or- der fully to understand the real doctrine then rec- ognized we must first appreciate the notion which then prevailed concerning the resurrection of Jesus, whether it was an actual physical or a spiritual resr urrection; the promise which this hope of the refr- urrection of the disciples held forth to them; and finally what idea of the eternal life they entertained as proved by the earliest monuments of the church. This task we shall now undertake.

We have already shown that Paul's conception of the resurrection of Jesus from the grave was a mystical conception which he had imbibed from the ancient pagan mysteries. To him the resurrection of Jesus was not a restoration to physical life of the body of flesh with which Jesus had been buried; but was the resurrection of an attenuated, diapha- nous, semi-material, or, as he called it, spiritual body, in the manner of which he believed that all who consecrated themselves to Christ would like- wise be resurrected. He makes this very clear in the famous 15th chapter of I Cor. Here he is

199

200 MODEBN LIGHT ON DfMOBTALITY

avouching the resurrection of Jeeus and making that fact the historical foundatiou and ground-work of the Gospel which he is preaching.

It must not, however, be forgotten that Paul al- ways insists that the Gospel which he is preaching is his; that it is a Gospel opposed to that of the rest of the apostles; that it is apparently revolu- tionary in the early annals of the Church. In the opening sentence of the chapter above referred to he says: ^^1 declare unto you, brethren, the gospel which / preached unto you ; by which ye are saved if ye hold fast what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain/' Bemembering, as we learn from Clemens Alexandrinus and the other pristine fathers of the Church, that it was a well recognized fact that Paul is referring to Peter and his asso- ciated apostles whenever he insinuates that there are some who are trying to teach his disciples an- other gospel than what he preaches ; that in Gala- tians he charges them that even though an angel from heaven should try to teach them any other gospel, let him be accursed ; we may clearly perceive that when Paul almost angrily exclaims, ^^ I am de- termined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified,'' he is bent on in- troducing a new doctrine which is not acceptable to the other apostles. There is a strong intimation in all the epistles of Paul that both the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus were not readily accepted as facts by the early believers, so much so indeed that we are perhaps justified in assuming that Paul

PAUL AM) THE EESUEBECTION 801

himself was the first to introduce these teachings.^ The earliest Christians, such as Apollos, knew noth- ing but the baptism of John.' Then followed a sect who saw in Christ merely the Scriptural Mes- siahy who was sent to deliver Israel ; then there was a third division or class who discerned in Jesus a far more mystical and arcane messenger of Ood than any heretofore set forth. This division was inaugurated and led by Paul, who made it the ulti- mate cult of historical Christianity. The funda- mental preaching and indoctrination of this cult was the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, ap- prehended in a purely mystical sense, as Paul so perspicaciously sets forth in the first chapter of I Corinthians. A careful reading of this chapter, it seems to us, will set forth the distinguishing fea- tures of Paul's preachment against the Judaic in- doctrination of the other apostles, with indisputable clearness. He refers to the cause of the divisions among them, namely, the contention that some of them are followers of ApoUos, some of Cephas, some of Paul. He denounces the utility and effective- ness of mere baptism, and thanks Ood that be bap- tized very few of them, for he was not called to baptize but to teach. Thus he attempts to weaken the influence of Apollos. He makes a very sly and yet most forceful attack on Cephas or Peter when he says he came not to preach the gospel with the " wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made

1 1 Cor. XV : 3. 2Actoxyiii:24.

202 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

•

of none effect . . . for, where is the wise; where is the disputer of this world i " This de- scriptiony according to the prevalent legend among the fathers, is an exact portrayal of Peter, who pur- sued Paul around the world arguing against and disputing him wherever Paul preached.

Peter undertook to argue from Scripture that Jesus was the Messiah, who came to deliver Israel only. Paul called this the work of the " scribe " ;* that is, an imitation of the rabbinical methods by which the people had so long been mentally be- fogged and benighted.

Paul, however, insists that he is introducing a doctrine which to the Jews (not to the unconverted Jews, but to the Judaic Christians) is '^ foolish- ness.'' This passage seems to have been wholly misinterpreted by the traditional student, because it has always been pointed out that Paul was here referring to the supposed conception of the Messiah among the ancient Pharisees; whereas from what follows in this chapter it is manifest that Paul is trying to overturn certain false conceptions about Christ that had grown up among the early believers and is attempting to introduce a doctrine among them which is wholly new. To the Jew it is a stumbling-block, and foolishness to the Greeks. That is, foolishness to the Grecian Christians, who regard the message and mission of Jesus merely as an exoterical doctrine, because, as he soon intimates, they do not understand their own " mysteries " ; and a stumbling-block to the Jewish Christians,

III Cor. i:20.

PAUL AND THE EESUBEECTION 208

who know nothing of the inner doctrine, because, as he declares, they do not ri^tly interpret their own scriptures.

This doctrine Paul calls the ** Preaching of the Cross." Kow we begin to apprehend his earnest- ness and determination when he says he will preach only Christ and Him crucified.

All this is made apparent in the following chap- ter (ii), where Paul declares that the '^ wisdom " which he preaches is meant only for those who are initiated in the secret or mystery, unto whom it is wisdom and not foolishness. The translated word in the book is here ** perfect," but should read, as we have already shown, *^ initiated." God has re- vealed this truth to him, he says, '^ by his spirit ; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." He insists that the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God ; but he that is spiritual judgeth all things yet he is judged of no man. That is, the man who is so spiritually minded that he discerns visions and revelations, whose meaning he alone can interpret, but which to all the world besides are foolishness or a stumbling-block, is alone the one who has superior and divine knowledge that comes from God.

We have seen elsewhere how Paul insisted that because of these revelations he has superior knowledge which the other apostles disputed; and now we are able to discern what was that particular knowledge of which Paul boasted with such self- glorification, li was nothing other than his ascrip-

204 MODEBN LIGHT ON nfMORTALITY

Han of the mffdietd mme$ of <A€ Orecian myt- teries to ike legendary account of (he adveni and career of the eo-^aUed Meeeiah, whom he everjf^ where calls hy (he Orecian Hile of the Christ.

Without entering here into a more detailed di»- cnssion, it must now be apparent to the dionghtf ol reader that Paul's idea of the cmci&don and resur- rection of Jeana was to be taken in an apochryphal or mystical sense, and not literally. This he makes very dear when he argues about the resurrection of Jesus in the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians. He insists that if there is no resurrection of human beings then there was no resurrection of Jesus. But after presenting this long argument for the fact of the resurrection of Jesus to establish the truthfulness of the doctrine of the resurrection of all believers, he then shows what he means by the resurrection body. It is not the body of the flesh at all. It is a spiritual body. The resurrection of the dead is of the body sown in corruption and raised in incorruption. ^'It is sown a natural body; it is raised a iq>iritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.'' Then he proceeds to declare that flesh and Uood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore the resur- rected body must be the psychical, the invisible, the immaterial body. As he says, the material body will be changed in the twinkBng of an eye. But as he insists that Jesus is the prototype of the race he must also have meant that Jesus as flesh and blood could not have inherited the Kingdom, therefore his resurrection body could not have been

PAUL AND THE BESUBRECTION 305

materiaL Paul saw this body or pieaenoe in the spirit as spiritual and never knew it in the body of the flesh.

Hence his notion of the resurrection was that in the Eingdom, which Christ was speedily to introduce, all those who believed would be trans- muted into psychical or spiritual bodies and know each other thenceforth only in the spirit and aa spirit AU this, however, was a wholly new doc* trine to the Judaic Christians, who, like the ancient Babbis, looked forward to a time when the Final Judgment would call for a general resurrection of the souls and bodies of men before the Lord.

Paul, then, was responsible for the introduction of the doctrine of the crucifixion and the resurrec- tion of Jesus into Christendom; he transformed it from a Judaic religion into one that was Grecian or pagan in its nature. He transposed the sym- bolism of the ancient mysteries into the new re- ligion and thus gave it its mystical and arcane character, which has since proved to be the source of its power and fascination over the himian race. The interpretation of history which we have here given wiU perhaps help us to understand the other- wise almost incomprehensible attitude of the early believers with regard to the allied crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

We must briefly call attention to the gradual growth of the tradition of the crucifixion and resur- rection of Jesus in the early Church. The re- markable silence of all literature on the subject for nearly two hundred years after the time his-

206 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

toricallj assigned for the career of Jesus is the first suggestive fact We have above stated that we believe Paul was responsible for the introduc- tion of these traditional doctrines. We have re- peatedly called attention to the fact that Peter and Paul were in bitter and irreconcilable contention with each other. Now according to the best critics ^^ During the first century and a half after the death of Jesus there is not to be found a single dis- tinct trace of the Gospels/' ^ Traditions are how- ever prevalent concerning the career of Jesus and certain writings about Him called Gospels by vari- ous names. There existed a Gospel, According to the Hebrews, which seemed to be the fundamental literature on the subject, which is also called the Gk)spel According to Peter, and which was the dis- tinctive authority of the Jewish sect of Christians known as Ebionites. Now, by the authority of tradition Peter was known as an Ebionite, a sect which Eusebius reminds us wholly rejected all the teachings of St. Paul as heretical.* This Gk)6- pel, which was recognized as the exposition of the teachings of Christ on which Peter depended, wholly disregarded the mystical teachings of St. Paul, afterwards introduced. ^^ At Corinth, as in Crete, the great apostle [Paul] had to contend strenuously against a false spiritualism, which . . . rejected the resurrection of the body, de- nying first the resurrection of Jesus Himself.'' ^

1 Snp. Rel., II, 248. sSup. Rel., I, 423. s PrcBense'B '' Early Tears of Christianity,'* p. 75.

PAUL AND THE BESUEBECTION 207

Thus we see that in the first traditions of the life and Career of Jesus no maition is made of the resurrection of Jesus, and when afterwards Paul attempts to introduce the doctrine it is bitterly op- posed by those who were said to have associated with Jesus and to have seen him after His resto- ration from death. A hundred years gives ample time for the development of a traditional rumor.

The EbioniteSy as we have already said, rapidly declined in influence and the preaching of Paul became predominant and authoritative. Therefore when the canonical gospels were produced and finally launched on the Church they fully in- corporated the teaching about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, which seems to have been a Pauline innovation. That these gospels manifestly were manufactured in such a man- ner as to bear out the supposed prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the Messiah and make them dovetail with the career of Jesus is now admitted by all progressive Biblical schol- ars.

While we have not here space to enter fully into the argument which proves the inauthenticity and artificial character of the Qospels with reference to the resurrection of Jesus, we mention rapidly the following: Ko convincing mention is made in the synoptic gospels of the appearance of Jesus after his crucifixion. The Oospel of Mark is the oldest of the three and the references there to the post- mortem appearances of Jesus are admittedly spuri- ous^ In the oldest gospel it is said that Mary

208 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMOBTALITY

and Salome^ going to the tomb, found it empty, and a young man sitting there told them that Jesus had risen. In ^^Hatthew" this young man has evolved into ^^ an angel of the Lord," etc Here the two Marys are mentioned as the visitors at the tomb, and nothing is said of Salome. Jesus is now said to appear and converse with the women. ** Some " who are said in this gospel to have seen Jesus reappear worshipped Him, but ^^some doubted.'' Nothing is said by Matthew of the as- cension. In Luke a fourth woman, Joanna, is added to the group who visit the tomb, and even ^^certain others"; instead of them seeing a single young man as in Mark, they see ^' Two men in shining garments." In the many additional ap- pearances of Jesus that Luke recounts, he nowhere shows that Jesus returned to Galilee, where the young man in Mark had told the women Jesus would appear to them. Then, in the fourth gospel, which was probably written a hundred years after Mark, we find the story greatly exaggerated, many ornamental details being added, all worked into a mystical and most fascinating invention. Three of the gospels assert that the women ran and imme- diately told the disciples about the empty tomb and the risen Christ Mark says '^ They said nothing to any man."

It is not a fact to be overlooked, and certainly surprising, that the doctrine of the resurrection was not commonly accepted among the early Christians, but was indeed stoutly disputed and denied when first promulgated. Why there should have been

PAUL AND THE RESUEEECTION 209

so great a dispute over an event of such sensational nature, which was alleged to have been witnessed at one time by over five hundred people, is not easily understood if it be a fact '

CHAPTER XVI

EAELT CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF

ETERNAL LIFE

To our mind, the most serious objection that presents itself to the historical truthfulness of the alleged crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the absolute silence of all contemporary literature rela- tive to the subject We have just shown that the earliest supposed writings which purported to give the inside history of the career of Jesus made no reference whatever to it. No mention of such an event is made till the gospels are promulgated fully one hundred and more years after his supposed crucifixion. This is damaging. But what is even more negatively disposed to the historicity of the tradition is that learned Jewish and pagan con- temporaries of Jesus, who would most natui^y take cognizance of such an event, are perplex- ingly silent concerning it. Jesus must have been a most ccmspicuous character in Judsea. His life was not lived in a comer. It is said that all Judsea came out to receive baptism at John's hands. To them John prodaimed the Messiahship of Jesus. If to such a character anything so marvellous as the unparalleled return ^om that bourne, from which no traveler is said ever to have returned, really occurred, is it not natural to assume that not only all Judsea would have been thrilled but all the rest of the world likewise t Such an extraor-

210

EAELY CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 211

dinaiy and manifestly supernatural event would haye been repeated on the pale and affri^ted lips of all who met upon the streets; whispered omi- nously in temples of religion and austerely interro- gated in courts of law and schools of learning. The fact> then, that all historical records are abso- lutely silent as to so startling an event sufficiently discountenances its reality.

Most surprising of all, however, is the fact, not that pagan records have avoided any reference to the event, but that an eminent Jewish philosopher and teacher, Philo of Alexandria, who had him- self foretold in allegory precisely such a circum- stance as probable in the life of one who would come to reveal the Logos, and who at the very time of the alleged resurrection was an honored visitor in Jerusalem, is also absolutely and most sugges- tively silent

The entire force of contemporary, profane as well as religious, history seems negatively disposed to the alleged resurrection of Jesus, because of its universal and unbroken silence. This, to my mind, more than even the mutually contradictory char- acter of the Gk)spel narratives, disproves the prob- ability of the event which has held the world in awe for so many centuries.

Indeed, it must be admitted that if profane his- tory afforded the meanest corroboration of the event, we should be compelled to give it considerable credence, notwithstanding the contradictions and apparent mythological character of the consecrated records. But the fact that all contemporary his-

213 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

tory is silent, oanoeming what wa% if true, at onoe the moBt momentous event in the annals of time and the oonapicaons oorner^tone on which the im- mortal Apostle sought to rear the glorious super- atrnctare of the historio Ohurch; yea^ the add^ tional f acty as we shall see in a moment, that even the Church reoords and long concealed monuments of early Christianity, are themselves utterly silent concerning this event for many centuries after the decease of Jesus, seems to present crushing disproof of the entire story.

For, we learn from the catacombs, that not for aeveral centuries after the founding of the Chris- tian Church at Antioch by Peter and Paul, was there any record among the artistic ornamentations of those secret and mysterious resorts, of either the crucifixion or the resurrection of Jesus Christ Now, how shall we account for this fact! 8haU we permit ourselves to believe that the most mo- mentous occurrence of all history, the one especial and unique characteristic of the Christian religion, which, indeed, gave it pre-eminence and authoritar tive power over all others, would have been so little commemorated in the sacred observances of the early Church as to call for no inscriptions, however even obscurely hinted at, on the walls of those places where the pristine believers recorded their tenets and the principal events in the lives of the Savior and his apostles t

All critical scholars are aware of this embar- rassing fact Neverlhdess much-biased authors seek Iff glosses and insinuating eloquence to belit-

EARLY CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 218

tie the effect of the damaging evidence. Withrow, for instance, in his ^^ Catacombs/' page 431 says : *^ The glorious doctrine of the resurrection, which is peculiarly the doctrine of our holy religion as distinffuished from the faiths of all antiquity, was everywhere recorded throughout the Catacombs. It was symboUzed in the ever-recurring representa- tions of the stoiy of Jonah, and the raising of Laz- arus, and was strongly inserted in numerous in- scriptions."

The gloss, here, not to say prevarication, is very apparent. Observant scholars will naturally be inclined to ask. Why if the story of the resurrec- tion of Jesus was believed by those pristine Chris- tians to be a fact, did they, indeed, symbolize it by representations of other events, and not, first- hand, by presentations of the story of Jesus it- self i To controvert the misinforming gloss in the author quoted there is a passage in the scholarly and unbiased History of Rationalism, by Leoky (voL 1, 210), which I will here reproduce: " It had always been a strict rule among pagans to ex- clude from sepulchral decorations any image of sadness • • • Wreaths of flowers, Bacchic dances, hunts or battles, all the exuberance of a buoyant life, all the images of passion and revelry were sculptured round the tomb. • • • The in- fluence of this tradition was shown in a very re- markable way in Christianity. At first all Chris- tian art was sepulchral art Yet • • • neither the Crucifixion nor any of the scenes of the Pas- sion were ever represented (in the Catacombs) ;

214 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

nor was the Day of Judgment nor the sufferings of the lost The change in art was not shown till the tenth century."

If, however, they were indisposed to the pres- entation of gruesome events that portray human suffering, and preferred to decorate their tombs with scales of joyanoe and exuberant life, why did they not exercise their genius upon that which if true would be the most inspiring scene of all human history — the resurrection and ascension of one whom they proclaimed the Savior of the world ? It was the custom of those ancient artists to merge the mythological stories of antiquity in the legends of the life of Jesus and thus portray with vivid effect and local color the glory and triumph of His career. As Lecky says: '^Apollo, the god of music, and Adonis, the lover of Diana, represented that male beauty softened into something of fe- male loveliness by the sense of music or the first chaste love of youth, which the Christian painters long afterwards represented in the St. Sebastian of St John." Why, then, did they not utilize the beautiful and su^estive legend of the restora- tion of Narcissus from his watery grave in the glory of the resurrection bloom, to illustrate the splendor of Christ^s victory over the tomb? Why did they not transmute the immortal heel of Achil- les into the triumphal will of Jesus, at whose com- mand death lost its sting and the grave its victory ? Why did they not perceive, in the resplendent rise of Aphrodite from the rain-bowed waves, and her abounding reign of love o'er all the world, because

EABLY CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 215

of her mystical ascent from the glassy gloom of the watery depths^ an inspiring subject by which to illustrate the glorious resurrection of Jesus and His majestic ascent to the receptive heavens ? An- cient mythology was replete with alleged events which the imitative art of Bome would cheerfully^ have employed to immortalize such an unparalleled occurrence, were it actually believed by the Cata- combs worshippers to have been an historical fact.

We do, however (and here is the crux of the problem) y finally arrive at a period of Christian, art when the pagan traditions are merged in the legend of the Besurrection, and depicted in the representations of the Catacombs; but it is so late as the sixth century after Christ, and thus suffi* ciently attests the comparative modernity of the tradition.^

Another very suggestive fact, proved by the Cata- combs inscriptions, and which indicates the late arrival of the legend of the crucifixion and the resurrection, is the use made of the pictures of the lamb, in that ancient art To the first Jewish Christians the "Lamb of God," John's title for Jesus, meant, of course, the paschal lamb, whick they ate at the Passover. Now, "in the earliest times the Christians did not celebrate the resur- rection of the Lord from the grave. They made the Jewish Passover their chief festival, celebrat- ing it on {he same day with the Jews. But in pro- portion as Christianity separated itself from Juda-

iFor a fuller discussion of this subject, see the author's ''The Triumph of Truths or The Doom of Dogma/' p. 264ff»

216 MODEEN LIGHT ON DIMOBTALITY

ism and became moie and more pagan, a new tradition gained curren^^ among them, to the ef- fect that Jeans before His death had not eaten the Passover, but had Himself died on the day of the Passover, thus snbetitnting Himself for the Paschal Lamb/'

From that period the celebration of the Jew- ish Easter was changed from the 14th of Kisan (the historical Jewish day) into the celebration of the allied Resurrection, and celebrated on the pagan day of Apollo, the day of the sun* It is significant that in the earliest artistic inscriptions the lamb was nndecorated ; but beginning with the sixth century they began to decorate it with a tri- umphal cross; thus showing about the time that the story of the crucifixion and resurrection gained a foothold in the ecclesiastical traditions. Finally, in the Quinisextan council, 692 A* D., the figure of the lamb was ordered changed to that of a hu- man figure, representing that of Jesus. It is also most singular and suggestive that no representation of the Crucifixion can be found earlier than 586 A. D., and this is a very crude and distinctively pagan presentation.

But we shall, I think, be even more thoroughly convinced that the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus and the immediate deliverance of the human soul from death was not commonly held in the early Ohurch when we study still further the curi- ous inscriptions which have been found in the mysr terious catacombs. Says Dean Stanley ("Chris- tian Institutions''): "There is one subject on

EABLY CHEISTIAN CONCEPTION 217

which we ahoiild naturally expect to learn from these catacombs some tidings of the belief of the early Christian, and that is concerning the future life and the departed. In these representations there are three such characteristics. First, there is the simplicity. In what form are the souls of the departed presented to ust Almost always in the form of little birds ; sometimes with bright plum- age — peacocks, pheasants, and the like; more of- ten as doves. There is here, no doubt, the child- like thought that the soul of man is like a bird of passage, which nestles here in the outward frame of flesh for a time, and then flies away beyond the sea to some brighter, warmer home.'^

Here, it will be observed, there is no intima- tion of the continuance of life beyond the grave, of a persistent personality, which shall retains the con- sciousness of the individual once tenanting an earthly body. The intimation that the soul would fly away is palpably nothing more than the thought that life would depart and go whence it came.

^'And when we come to the epitaphs pf the ancient dead, we find the same simple feeling," con- tinues the author. ^^ There is no long description, till the third century, not even a date; i^o formal profession of faith, no catalogue of either merits or demerits. There is, generally speaking, but one short word : ' My most sweet child ; ' * My most dear husband ; ' ^ My innocent dove,' '' etc.

Thus even in the epitaphs we find no serious intimation of an after-death life. The thought here expressed is exactly that of the pagan world of the

218 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

period and is evidentlj not tinged with any of that more specific and dogmatic conception which is now so common*

** There is one other word which occurs fre- quently after the mention of ^ peace/ and that is * Live in God/ or * Thou wilt live in God/ or ^Mayest thou live in God.' That is the early Christians' expression of the ground of their belief in immortality."

From this it is still more apparent that the be* lief which they entertained was not that of a dis- tinct personal existence after deaths but merely de- liverance from the confinement of the earthly frame and liberation in the Spirit of Grod, similar to the thought of the '^ bird flying away." It cannot be denied that these expressions indicate the simple and abiding faith of the early Christians; but it is a faith in the goodness of the God, and in His final disposition of the souls of men. It does not necessarily specify the characteristics of such a faith, or how such faith inclines the believers to think Gk)d will finally dispose of departed spirits.

On this subject Dean Stanley says rather su^es* tively: "Perhaps if the simple words of those early Christians were now used as expressions of faith they would be thought Deistic, or Theistic^ or Pantheistic, or Atheistic"

By these words undoubtedly Stanley meant to convey the idea that as he read those ancient in- scriptions he could find nothing definite or positive concerning the conception which the first Chris- tians entertained of the after life. He, in fact^

EAELT CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 219

leaves the palpable impTession on the mind of the reader that he thinks the first Christians believed that death ended the conscious life of the individ- ual and his spirit went forth to mingle with the imiversal spirit of nature whence it came to in- habit this planet. His intimation that such a con- ception would not to-day be accepted as Christian, but as Pantheistic or Atheistic^ is none too strong, but it clearly reveals the undogmatic and philo- sophical attitude assimied by the early Christians.

Indeed, Dean Stanley as much as admits this fact when he further says : " In a well-known work of Strauss, entitled ^ The Old and the New Belief,' there is an elaborate attack on what the author calls ^ The Old Belief.' Of the various articles of that ^Old Belief,' which he enumerates, hardly one appears conspicuously in the catacombs. • • • The belief of the Catacombs ... is not that which is defended by modem theologians or attacked by modem skeptics."

We are manifestly justified, therefore, in say- ing that for the first three centuries of the Chris- tian Church the belief in the continued conscious eidstence of the individual after death was not clearly or commonly believed. Paul's personal doe- trine seems to lie in abeyance all these centuries before it became finally incorporated in the gen- eral teachings of the church. Indeed, it required the matchless labors of St. Augustine to elaborate and establish Paul's doctrine in the creed, just as it required the labors and teaching of Paul to analyze and cosmopolitanize the teachings of Jesus

CHAPTER XVII 1 PHYSICAL BASIS OP THE SOUL

It is evident to the reader that all the specula* tions thus far preseQted, as indicative of the ethnic thought of the ages, are the outcome of man's definition and interpretation of the human souL But man's view of the nature of the soul and its history beyond the death of the body is ever vari- able with his conception of the universe. Science BOW teaches us that the soul is not to be contem- plated as a thing apart, an entity distinct and imique, whose nature can alone be apprehended by those who are spiritually minded and given to arcane speculation. We shall learn that all na- ture is unitary and its laws coterminous, operating alike throughout the infinite. Therefore, whatever appertains to the most distant star is not foreign to the immediate soul of man or brute.

But if one contemplates the soul as an entity within and separate from the body, unmixable with it as is oil with water, then he will regard it as an exotic, elsewhere generated and but temporarily transplanted on this planet. He will necessarily be ignorant of its nature, its laws and its history. This, however, is the common interpretation of the souL For many ages has man regarded it as a thing so sacred and divine, b^otten of Qod and as mysterious as Himself, that an attempted analy- sis of it, like to that which science makes of the

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224 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

physical bodj^ was regarded as not only a futile effort, but most grossly sacrilegious*

Of its origin none durst dogmatise ; its mystery none durst attempt to solve. Yet to most people who sought to picture it to the mind, it appeared, relatively to the body, somewhat as the kernel of the nut to its shelL Functionally the kernel is related to the shell, yet it stands apart and inde- pendent of it. The kernel is essential to the nut, for it cannot exist without it ; the kernel is indeed the seat and centre of the life of the nut; yet though the shell be wholly separate from the ker^ nel the two must oo-exist and co-operate or there can be no nut

After this manner most people contemplate the •ouL They regard it, like the kernel, as a thing wholly diverse and separate from the shell of the decaying body. It is either within the body, and yet apart from it ; or it encircles the physical frame like an invisible halo, whose vitalizing foree is the source and sustenance of the body's temporary existence.

So long as our philosophy compels us to con- template the soul as an entity wholly separate in essence from aught else in the world that is amen- able to the apprehension of the senses, it will be impossible to postulate any scientific or logical con- elusidi concerning its history or the laws that gOT* em it As long as men so regarded the soul there could be no scientific psychology; for that which was classified as psychology was in reality meta- physics and wholly without the realm of the nat-

PHYSICAL BASIS OF THE SOUL 225

nral acienoea. But modern diflooveries force us to ccmsider the universe as a luiit, and all its varying phenomena as nothing more than the product of its unitaiy and harmonious forces. Hence a knowl* edge of physiology must precede an understanding of the laws of psychology; we can apprehend the nature of the invisible soul only after we have comprehended the nature of the visible body.. '^ First the natural, then the spiritual." We must ascend from the body to the soul ; from the visible to the invisible; from earth to heaven; from man. to God. Because in the ignorance of times past we have reversed the process we have been so long befogged metaphysically and misled by false oc- cultism and perverted spirituality. Our ignorance of the body has prevented our knowledge of the soul. But thanks to modem science, and what has so long been foolishly r^arded by the alleged re-^ ligious as crass materialism, we are now on the verge of a scientific understanding of the human, soul.

The next few pages will, therefore, be devoted to a study of the latest scientific analysis of the universe, in order that we may better appreciate the theory with reference to the nature of the soul and its possible post-mortem existence, which I shall soon set forth.

It will, perhaps, be quite impossible to review the many ideas of die universe without running coun«- ter to theological conceptions, which necessarily in- volve a discussion of the relation of Deity to Na- tnre.

S26 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITT

The idea for many ages defended by the Church was that Nature without a governing Deity was impossible, and that every philosophy which sou^t to expound such a thesis was essentially atheistic. The modem notion that Nature is self -creative and self-sustaining, that science need not look beyond the forces of the Infinite for the source of the phe- nomena that reveal themselves in the experience of mankind as the universe, was for many ages ig- nored or expelled as unworthy from the synagogue of authority.

The idea that pervades all the writings of the theologians and the religious scientists . is that Na- ture is conditioned; that it is circumscribed by a superintending Intelligence whose power and au- thority are supreme and unlimited by natural law. " The interpretation which the Church has given • • . has been remarkably uniform through the ages. She has always taught that the continuance of the world, no less than its origina- tion, has its ground in the Divine causality; and every theory of the relation of Qod to the world which has sacrificed the doctrine of the all-em- bracing, all-sustaining presence of Gk>d in the uni- verse, as an immediate and real efficiency, has al- ways been rejected as Pelagian, Rationalistic, or Deistic The conception of the Divine conservation of the world as the simple, uniform and universal agency of God sustaining all created substances and powers in every moment of their existence and ac- tivity, is the Catholic doctrine of Christendom." ^

1 '* Theistic Conception of the World," B. P. Crocker, 177.

PHYSICAL BASIS OF THE SOUL 227

It is precisely at this point that Theology and Science have dashecL The one has insisted on the conditioning and dependency of Nature on an ex* temal and essential Deity or Creator, the other has determined that Nature is herself but the compo- nent expression of infinite forces, or the infinitely variable expression of one permanent and absolute force. These two essentially opposite conceptions of Nature lie at the bottom of all interpretations of the origination and future history of the human soul ; according as we side with the one or the other we shall determine our understanding of the fate that awaits the human race.

The schoolmen, led by St. Augustine and Scotus, taught the doctrine of the co-operation of the Divine and the Natural ; that God was immanent in all the operations of the universe ; Luther and the modem Protestants taught that God gave the universe or world its first impulse; Arminius, that nature is supported by the Divine sustentation ; and some modem religious scientists, that the world is upheld by ** divine superintendence and controL" In one form or another this anthropomorphic conception of the universe held sway, until very recent times, even in the most ultra scientific circles. But slowly through the ages an opposite view was running its course to come to its final triumph only in these latest times. That notion was that the separation between the subject and the object, the outer, visi- ble world, and the inner, invisible Creator, was sci- entifically inconceivable. The idea now predomi- nant is that God and the universe are one and oo-

228 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

terxnmons ; that if the universe U infinite there is no room for another infinity whom -we call Deity; that if Deity is infinite then there is no room for another infinity we call the universe. In short, two infinities cannot co-exist; for, if conceivably they do exist, then they must merge, and cannot be separable as two, but are essentially one and in- separable.

Modem science, however, goes even still farther in its analysis of Nature and insists that when we have dissected, so to speak, the entire world we have discovered all its component parts, and that what is not therein revealed has no actual existr ence; that what has heretofore been conceived as God is but an hypothesis deducted from human ex- perience, and has no other existence than as a men- tal notion or abstract conception. In the next chapter we shall study the gradual development of this idea in philosophy and science and the part it bears in determining ihe future history of the souls of mesk

OHAPTEBXVm

GBECIAN PHILOSOPHERS ON THE NA- TUEE OF THE ITNIVERSE

We find among the andent Qreek philoeophen a dear deavage in regard to their conception of Qod and the world, which seems to have set the pattern for all future speculation and contention. Here we find in full form the two schools of the idkai/- IBT and the s^NSATioirAUBT, which have pre- vailed in all subsequent ages. The old Ionian school attempted to explain the universe by a sys- tem of physical analogies familiar to human ob- servation* In constructing their theory of the world they sought for some primal principle, the first beginning of all things. Thales of Miletus, the founder of this school, believed that water was the ultimate essence of Nature, while Anaximenes, his pupil, that air was the source from which all phenomena derived their origin. Diogenes went so far as to insist that the air had a soul; indeed, that it was not only a living soul, but had intelli- gence and consciousness. Heraclitus of Ephesus insisted that fire was the virile essence of all mat- ter. Yet the fire of this philosopher was not the dull opaque flame of consuming fuel, but an emana- tion, a volatile ether, somewhat akin to chemical " caloric*^ To him the ever renewing capacity of the flame indicated the infinite fiux of natural forces, the coming and going, the being and becom-

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280 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

ingy the One and AUoi the ever manifest, existent universe. This fire or ether has spiritual qualities, analogous to what is sometimes conceived as ema- nations of the Divine Being revealed in human consciousness. This invisible fiery substance was indeed the universal mind, which though of ma- terial nature, gave forth spiritual energies that per- vaded space.

Anaximander, Democritus and Leucippus ap- proached the most modem conception of matter by teaching its atomic structure, and that the Atom was the ultimate unit to which physical substance could be conceivably resolved. There are some who can discern in the conclusions of the Ionic school of physics and psychology nothing but that whidi tends to materialistic atheism, and think to read from that a despairing note as to the futility of the human mind in searching from Nature only the ulti- mate truth about God and the universe. As, says R F. Crocker,^ to whose excellent work I am in- debted for the brief outline of ancient philosophy I have just presented : " Nature must be inter- preted, can only be interpreted, in the light of cer- tain a priori principles of reason, and we can never * ascend from Nature up to Nature's God.' With- in the circle of mere sense perception, the dim and undeveloped consciousness of God will be con- founded with the universe. Thus, in Anaximenes, God is partially confounded with the air; which becomes a symbol ; then a vehicle of the informing mind; and the result is semi-pantheisnu In

1 ** GhriBtiAnity and Greek Phflosophy/' p. 294.

GBECIAN VIEWS OF UNIVERSE 281

Heraclitus, the ^ ether ' is first a semi-symbol of Deity; at length God is utterly confounded with this ether, or ^ rational fire/ and the result is a def- inite materialisHc pantheism. And finally, when this feeling of dim consciousness of God, which dwells in all human souls, is not only disregarded, but pronounced to be a delusion — a phantasy; when all the analogies which intelligence suggests are disregarded, and a purely mechanical theory of the universe is adopted, the result is the utter negation of an Intelligent Cause, that is absoltUe Atheism, as in Leucippus and Democritas."

I quote this passage in full merely to show how even a most erudite thinker is easily led astray be- cause of the bias of traditional education and cir- cumscribed intellectual environment. He has first permitted himself to be terrified by certain a priori conceptions of the world, and then, having given to such conceptions certain distinctive names, he suc- ceeds in magnifying the horror to such immensity as to drive him wholly from the arena of rational thought. Without first deciding whether what he calls semi-atheism, semi-pantheism, materialistic pantheism and finally materialistic atheism, is ra- tional, scientific or indisputable, he permits him- self to be terrified by the very names and runs to antique theology for cover and protection.

We hope to be able to show in the discussion of this subject that the terms materialism, pantheism and idealism have been forced into most illogical and unwarranted opposition, and made to appear as actual contestants on warring sides, whose recon-

S82 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

cilabilitj is an absolute imposflibiUtj, wbereas the tnith disoems no such picturesque drama, but finds Nature wholly consonant with herself and little given to internecine warfare. Nature nowhere con- tradicts herself. Nature can contain or harbor no element pr principle which is inconsistent with or contradictory of her essential spirit or substance, and if sudi an element be read into her, whether as Deity or anti-Deity, she casts it forth uncere- moniously as an undimatable exotic.

Theology has too long befogged and benumbed the organs of true science, and not until we wholly liberate ourselves from it can we be rational or convincing in our conclusions. Therefore we shall proceed with a further investigation of the analy- sis of Nature made by the ancient and modem philosophers, with running comments and objeo- tions of orthodox students, that we may see how it has prejudiced an honest investigation of the soul's nature and possible future. The old dualis- tic theory of the world has done a deal of harm in the sincere search of the soul's temporary and eter- nal career, and before we can come into clear ground and study our facts unclouded by tradi- tional prejudice, we must cut through considerable underbrush whidi for ages has dimmed the distant view.

The Idealistic or Socratic school will next de- mand our attention. Socrates was the iSrst to in- troduce a truly scientific method in the study of metaphysics and the soul's activities. Like Bacon, who invented the inductive method in the penetra-

GBECIAN VIEWS OP UNIVERSE S88

tion of the physical facts and ultimate principles of Nature, Socrates anticipated modem psycholo^ ical science, bj determining, only through observa- tion and the study of personal experiences, the ex- istence and the nature of the souL He, like his great successor Plato, insisted that Ood was the primal and absolute substratum of existence and that every individual experience was but the mem- ory of a previous experience in God. That man, by knowing himself, came to know Ood. Ood was the all-pervading and ever active principle of Na- ture; His eyes were everywhere, and everywhere His powers extended. Man was but an emanation of the Infinite Being; and what he learned by indi- vidual experience was but his own perception and interpretation of fixed and eternal '^ ideas,'' which were ever in the mind of Ood. Therefore all that man learned was but a reminiscence; a recurrence in the conscious soul of what had « previously taken place in the Being of Gk)d. Ejiowledge was but a recollection. As Xenophon makes Socrates say in the " Memorabilia,'' " There is a Being whose eye passes through all Nature, and whose ear is opened to every sound ; extended to all places, ex- tending through all time; and whose bounty and care can know no other bounds than those fixed by His own creation."

Thus, we observe, Socrates became a reaction- ary and rejected the scientific tendency of Grecian thought as exemplified in the teachings of Anaxi- menes, Democritus and Leudppus. He rejected the monistic conception of the unity of the world,

234 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

and regarded its Creator as a Being superior to the UBiveree, which he himself had brought forth ; that Qod and Nature were not one, but two separate beings, the one inferior and subject to the other. Ftom this point of view Socrates inculcated the doctrine of the soul's immortality; as, being pri- marily and essentially ever existent in the Being of God, and God being indestructible, the soul of man was ever with God and essentially imperishable.

In short, Socrates founded the school of the IDEAIJ8T8, whose postulatcs rested on certain a priori conceptions, without the pale of empirical phi- losophy, and of course undemonstrable except as ab- stract thoughts. By this method an idea is ac- cepted as true and fundamental, and abiding on its axiomatic certainty, definite conclusions are drawn. But the idealist never pauses to ask whether his a priori conception is a fact in Nature ; he merely assumes it, and then deduces the sup- posed scientific demonstration.

To Plato truth is the intuitive perception of an absolute principle; Science is but observation of phenomena founded on arbitrary assumptions. To him the discernment of the eternal idka is a superior source of knowledge than the perception of natural phenomena. Says Ohmcon in the ^' Re- public," in his conversation with Socrates, " You wish to prove that knowledge, which by the Reason, in an intuitive manner, we may acquire of real ex- istence and intelligible things, is of a higher degree of certainty than the knowledge which belongs to what we commonly call the Sciences." To whidi

GKECIAN VIEWS OF UNIVERSE 286

Socrates replies that Glauoon has explained his po- sition very well indeed.

From this we see that the Idealist School belit- tles the efforts of the Naturalists to acquire a sure and certain knowledge of the world by observation and logical interpretation. All knowledge comes alone through the intuitive discernment of the eter- nal principles, and what knowledge comes by ob- servation of objective facts is devious and decep- tive, and wholly unreliable as a presentation of the Truth of Being. Hence Plato conceives that ^^ beneath all sensible phenomena there is an un- changeable subject-matter, the mysterious sub- stratum of the world of sense/' quite akin to the modem notion of " world-substance '' as conceived by Haeckel and the Monists. Yet to Plato's mind this world-substance seems to have a dual nature, for it subjoins the " unreal " to the " real," the in- visible to the visible, the conditioned to the uncon- ditioned, the world to the Deity. It is not as clear as Aristotle's conception, which is of ^^the sub- stance that is the subject of all changes."

Aristotle approached much nearer to the mod- em school of scientists who attempt to read noth- ing into Nature^ by preconceived ideas, which she herself does not palpably present. Plato sought to explain the known by the unknown; Aristotle sought a knowledge of the unknown through the known.

Hence the Socratic or Platonic argument for the soul's existence and immortality is to the scientific mind of the present day wholly gratuitous and in-

286 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

conclusive. It aasumeB the immortality of the soul because it is incorporeal or immateriaL Mat- ter is destructible, therefore the soul, being imma- terial, is indestructible and immortal.

The soul is self-determining, self -moving. That which derives its motion from something else may cease to be active, and is also the cause of motion to all other things that are moved. *^ The soul is immortal because it is the nature in which are in- herent the universal, necessaiy and axiomatic prin- ciples of thought and being ; or what he called ^ ab- solute ideas.' " (Crocker.)

Such arguments to-day are utterly inefficient and ineffective because they assume a certain knowl- edge, which is precisely the thing for which we are searching. To say that the soul is incorporeal, immutable, indestructible, the inherent possessor of absolute ideas, and so on, and to use these as- sumptions as proofs of the soul's existence, when these very qualities are the things to be determined only after we have discovered the soul and studied its capacities, is manifestly but a gratuitous argu- ment foimded on arbitrary and undemonstrated conceptions.

I have thus hastily, and very imperfectly, re- viewed some of the leading schools of philosophy that prevailed in ancient Greece, because almost all the philosophical and scientific conceptions which in later ages have from time to time prevailed, are generally found in that marvellous civilization. This is not the place, nor have we the room, to elaborate on the profound systems of thought which

GEECIAN VIEWS OF UNIVEBSE 287

that most scholarly of all people, ancient or mod- em, have left ub as their heritage.

But, even from this cursory review, it must be manifest that the cause of contention and differ- ence in the diverse interpretation of those schools lay in their opposite ideas of the nature of the world The one school believed that the world was divided into two parts, the real and the unreal, the subjective and the objective, the material and the spiritual, the soul and the world, Qod and the uni- verse. The other school contended either that what was supposed to be a differentiation was only such in man's conception and not so in fact, in Nature ; that mind and matter, soul and phenomena, world and Deity were one and inseparable; or that but the objective alone existed and nothing else beyond, which in essential nature was contradictory of or diverse to the palpable world which men discerned.

CHAPTER XIX SPECULATIVE SCIENTIFIC VIEWS

In our age we have advanced beyond these an- cient speculations because we are blessed with a more accurate and intimate knowledge of Nature. The ancients with marvellous intuitive discern- ment anticipated modem discoveries, but not till the scientific method was introduced have we been able to prove what some of the ancients conjectured. The age-long imagined diversity between matter and force, substance and mind, soul and body, thought and energy, has in our time been demon- strated to be an utter fallacy. TTntil that demon- stration was made there could be neither a physical nor a psychological science. The alleged contradis- tinction between sensationalism and idealism, ma- terialism and spiritualism, is now wholly disproved, althoi2gh there are some who still insist upon it and thus confuse the entire scientific survey of the uni- verse.

What was once construed as bald materialism is now recognised as a universal conception of Na- ture; what was once lop-sided is now symmetrical and complete. Ignorant man readily reads a false interpretation of Nature's workings into his casual observations. Because he saw matter in the mass subject to motion and variability, he once conceived that within such matter there abode a thing he

288

SPECULATIVE SCIENTIFIO VIEWS 239

called f orce^ which to a Btill more ignorant age was a god, and this thing he believed to be the over- ruling and determining genius of the material form. What by the more ignorant was once believed to be a god is still regarded by the respectably intelligent as a souL Hence to them the force and the mat- . ter, the body and the god or soul, are irreconcilably contradistinguishable and separate. This is the notion which has been set aside by modem scientific discovery. Says Du Bois-Beymond : "Funda- mentally • . • there exists neither force nor matter. Both are abstractions. . . . Matter is no go-carty to and from which force, like a horse, can be harnessed now, now loosed. A particle of iron is and remains exactly the same thing, whether it shoot through space as a meteoric stone, dash along on the tire of an engine wheel, or roll in a blood corpuscle through the veins of a poet. Its properties are unchangeable, eternal, untransfer-

I able.''

I There is none living who to-day would contradict

this statement and hope to be recognised by the world's intellectuals. Yet there are still some who would so construe such a statement as to leave room for what has been r^arded as a separable soul, for the eternal entity whidi is itself distinguishable from both the " matter " and the " force " of the scientists. Because the phenomena of the soul are seemingly discerned as the activities of a subjective world, and the phenomena of the material universe are apparently objective to the soul, there are those

240 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

who insist that the soul is not material nor to be interpreted aoeording to the same principles bj which we interpret the outer world.

As says Prof. Noah Porter : * " The considera- tions that may be urged in proof that the sub* stance of the soul is not material are the fol- lowing: 1. The phenomena of the soul are in kind unlike the phenomena which pertain to mat- ter. All material phenomena have one common characteristic — that they are discerned by the senses. • . • 2. The acting ego is not only not known to be in any way material, but it distin- guishes its own actings, states and products, from the material substance with which it is most inti- mately connected, etc. • . . 8. The soul is self actiya Matter itself is inert,'' etc, etc

This argument falls wholly to Ihe ground, nat- urally, when we recognise the fact that what the soul regards as knowledge of itself and knowledge of the world, not itself, is in reality nothing but self-knowledge To the soul there is apparently the world of the senses and the world of the ego or inner consciousness ; but when analysed it is all found to be q^oistic or self-knowledge and nothing else The hand touches the chair; the mind per^ ceives the sensation of the contact and thinks it discerns two spheres of experience; the one being the outer hand and chair, the other being the mind within discerning these outer objects. But in fact it is all inward or subjective perception and knowl- edge; the mind cannot go outside of itself, nor

1 ** InteUectual l^tem," p. 17.

SPECULATIVE SCIENTIFIC VIEWS 241

ever does. It has its own apartments, subjective and objective spheres of experience, but they are both ultimately subjective and unsusceptible of pro- jection beyond the realm of the mental sphere.

Hence the confusion in popular interpretation. On the one hand there are those who say we live alone in matter and can have cognisance alone of material substance. On the other hand there are those who say we live alone in mind and what we call matter is but a mental experience. Doubtless both positions are correct, and are not irreconcilable but entirely consonant.

There will be those, like old Henry Moore, ^ who will say : ^^ If we but observe the great difference of our intellectual operations in infancy and do- tage, from what they are when in the prime of our years ; and how that our wit grows up by degrees, flourishes for a time and then decays, keeping the same pace with the changes that age and years bring into our body, which observes the same laws that flowers and plants do; what can we suspect but that the saul of man, which is so magnificently spoken of among the learned, is nothing else hvJt a temperature of the body, and that it grows and spreads with it, both in bigness and in virtues, and withers and dies, as the body does ; or at least that it does wholly depend on the body in its operations, and that therefore there is no sense or perception of anything after death."

Written as this paragraph was two hundred years ago, long before the advent of the more accurate

1 « Immortality of the Soul."

242 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

method of modem science^ it curiously anticipates its conclusions, and yet dogmatises where more re- cent discoveries enjoin caution and tolerance. Evi- dently his view was limited ; he had not yet learned of the startling divisibility and infinity of matter, as have the modem sciences ; that matter is not per- ishable nor is aught that has ever existed ; that what seems to wither and decay and therefore pass into nothingness is but a transformation of one form of substance into another, and as Oiodamo Bruno said a hundred years before Moore : ^^ That which was seed at firs^ becomes grass, then the ear, then bread, nutritive juice, blood, animal, seed, embryo, man, corpse, then again earth, stone, or other mineral, and so forth. • • • Matter as the Absolute includes within itself aU forms and dimensions. . . . Where we say there is death, there is only the out- going towards new life, a loosing of one xmion. whidi is the binding into a new."

Here Bruno marvellously anticipates the modem scientific idea. All is matter; all is mind. All is death ; all is life. This seems to be what science is now teaching us of Nature, overthrowing at once both the supposed materialistic or sensational, and idealistic or metaphysical, conception, and reaching a unitary or monsitic understanding which harmim- ises science and philosophy, and affords a natural comprehension of the soul and its powers.

CHAPTEE XX

OONFUCTING VIEWS OF THE NATUEE

OF MATTER

In order to understand what modem science means when it permits itself to use the word soul, we must first apprehend its interpretation of the nature and attributes of Matter. To make the sub- ject dear we shall be forced to distinguish between what may be called the scientific and philosophical interpretation. The scientific interpretation rests wholly upon the physical qualities of matter and seeks to define it without apparent reference to its ultimate comprehension by the human mind. The philosophical interpretation connotes the mental state of the interpreter, or man's ability to know the ultimate nature of matter. The first interpre- tation is well illustrated by Dolbear^ who says: " Whatever possesses the property of gravitative at- traction" is matter. The second interpretation may be illustrated by Huxley's statement: ^'AU that we know about matter is that it is the hypothet- ical substance of physical phenomena " ; or perhaps, better still by Berkeley, who says : " What we call matter has no actual existence; but that the im- pressions which we believe we receive from it are not, in fact, derived from anything external to our- selves, but are produced within us by certain dis- positions of the mind."

1'' Matter, Ether and Motion," p. 4.

243

244 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

The study of matter, indeed, affords one of the curiosities of science. From the earliest ages men have been groping, often approaching the truth then -wandering far from the moorings of reality. From the earliest times of man's thinking an effort has been made to account for the manner in which the mind apprehends the existence of material sub- stance. '^ The oldest speculation about matter dates back to the Epicurean School and Democritus, and . . . it comes to this : that the surfaces of bod- ies are constantly throwing off excessively attenu- ated films of their own substance; and that these films, reaching the mind, excite appropriate sensa- tions."

Although this idea is so ancient, it comes nearer approaching the truth, arrived at by modem in- vestigation, than any which intervened. However, after much wandering in needless speculation by the Schoolmen, some of the great lights of philosophy anticipated the discoveries which have been more recently effected. More and more science is coming to agree with philosophy in its interpretation of Nature and, as Huxley says, following in the wake of Descartes, is coming to see that the real world of knowledge is in the mind and not in external substance. '^ The most elementary study of sensa- tion justifies Descartes' position, that we know more of mind than we do of body; that the immaterial world is a firmer reality than the material'^

Huxley himself was indeed one of the world's great teachers who led the way to a consistent ap- prehension of Nature by showing the Unity of

THE NATURE OF MATTER 245

Thought, and that the supposed distinction between the materialist and the idealist was unwarranted and untrue. His contention was that both the Material- ist and the Idealist assumed something that had no existence whatever and that it was this mutually erroneous assumption which caused all the warfare between them* Remove the hypothetical assump- tion of either and their quarrel would cease. The assumption of the Idealist, which Huzley de- nounces, is that there is something in Nature beyond the facts of human consciousness and the substance of the mind. The materialistic assumption which he disclaims is that ^* only material phenomena and the substance of matter are the sole primary ezist- ences.'' *

We shall, however I believe, find that science, in the discoveries which it has made since the days of Huxley, carries us a stage even beyond his nega- tively recondliatory effort, by showing that while the assumptions of both those schools were unwar- ranted, they were so not because there was not an underlying verity in the assumption, but merely because they were made to appear as opposing rather than confirming each other. For we are coming to see that the assumption that there is nothing but the substance of mind and its phenom- ena is not a contradiction of the assumption that there is nothing but the substance of matter and its phenomena ; but that the real assumption is one that combines both and shows how what we call phenom- ena of matter are in point of fact phenomena of

1 ** Sensation and Structure of Sentlf erous Organs.''

246 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITY

consciousness and what we call phenomena of oon- sciousness are states or oonditions of material sub- stance. That we are justified^ by recent discover^ ies, to speak of matter in terms of mind and of mind in terms of matter ; that both substances, the material and spiritual are interchangeable^ that the mind is material and the body is mental, wholly according to the point of view by which we observe them, I believe we are coming to recognise as jus- tifiable conclusions of science. This we shall at- tempt to show in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XXI

RECENT SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS OF

MATTER

Because matter appeared objective, extensive^ distant and projected from man, he was ever led to believe that the mind which apprehended it wa& in its nature essentially different from the sub* stance it discerned. There seemed to be an im- passable gulf between a phenomenon and a state of consciousness; between the body that felt the sen- sation, and the mind that perceived it. But this was owing to fact that matter was always regarded in the mass, in its opaque, crude, visible and mani- fest form. When men begun to grasp the idea of the infinite divisibility of matter, the infinitesi- mal minuteness into which it might be reduced and the enormous vastness into which it could be expanded, the notion of its volatility came to be emphasized and from that its possible attenuation, into utter invisibility.

On the possible enormity of matter in the masa we are not concerned in this discussion; moreover it is apparent to every observer. But the reduc- tion of the vastest bulks into inconceivably minute particles is at once a marvel and revelation of the true nature of matter. A drop of water to the eye is a very small sphere indeed. But under the eye of the microscope it is a universe vaster to its infinitesimal inhabitants than is the planet to us.

247

248 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

The microscopist tells us that in the hundredth part of a drop of water there exists a world of animal- cule perfectly formed, which perform all the func- tions of living beings^ and with apparent sensation and will power. These micro-organisms are the wonders of modem science. " The vibriones, mi- croscopic animals of the minutest type, appear un- der the glass as heaps of tiny, quivering, scarcely perceptible points or threads, sometimes straight, sometimes twisted like corkscrews, and of these it is calculated that more than four thousand millions would occupy a cubic line/' ^

But when we penetrate the inanimate world we find spheres of such infinitesimal size that it is impossible for us mentally to grasp them. For in- stance, one scientist computes that in a thimble full of hydrogen gas there are six trillion molecules. To afford us some idea of what this means he says : " If a printing press were able to print every day a lexicon containing three million letters it would then have to work continually for 64,000 years in order to print as many letters as there are con- tained molecules in a thimble full of air."

Thus science amused itself by dividing visible matter into smaller and smaller particles, till one day it not only proved that matter could be reduced to a state invisible to the human eye, but even to a state utterly invisible to the strongest microscopes that human genius could invent In fact by the experiment of Prof. Crookes it proved that there is no space in Nature where particles of matter do

1 Budmer, " Force and Matter.''

SCIENTEFIO ANALYSIS 249

not exist, and that what is called invisible matter is indeed a reality. Prof. Crookes succeeded^ by reducing a vacuum to the millionth atmosphere and running an electric stream through it in demon- strating that there was indeed much matter still existing in the supposed vacuum ; that the supposed vacuum indeed afforded only a large space for the particles of matter to move more freely among themselves, thus revealing what is known as ^' ra- diant matter.*^

It would be interesting to give more illustra- tions of the infinity of matter to enforce the asser- tion that what we are wont to differentiate as mat- ter and mind or substance and soul are essentially the same, for nowhere in !ITature can we reach the end of matter and nowhere can we conceive of the limitations of mental activity. Thus neither by observation nor by thought can we, in contemplating matter in minuteness, reach a point at which we can stop, and there is no likelihood of such a point ever being reached. " Everywhere we find," says Stewart, ^Hhat the limitations of our reasoning faculties in respect of space and time shut out the possibility of our becoming accurately acquainted with these exceedingly minute bodies, which are none the less the raw material out of which the universe is built up." *

Indeed later Science has shown that these minute particles are the actual units of the universe, they are the primal matter out of which the whole world is made ; they are mere units of electricity or cen-

1 Buchner, " Force and Matter," p. 89.

260 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

tres of force whose infinite multiplicity and corre- lation constitute what we call the universe. But if these infinitesimal units are infinitely distrib- utedy in other words^ if there is no conceivable point in space, which is not occupied by a point of matter, and if likewise there is no point in Nature where a mental activity is not in operation, as we shall afterwards attempt to show, then as two infinitives cannot co-exist, is it not a scientific demonstration that material substance and mental action are iden* tical? To appreciate this conclusion more fully let us continue the analysis of matter and mind as made by the most recent science.

The achievements of physical chemistry and the science of electricity, in analyzing matter to an al- most vanishing residual, approaches the acme of the marvellous and reads like a romance. When we recall that some of the wisest of the original phi- losophers of ancient Greece and Egypt could think of no more attenuated condition of matter than earth, air, water and fire, which to them were the primal substances from which Nature evolved her multifarious phenomena, and then see how modem scientists have resolved the universal substance into a subject-matter as refined, attenuated and diaph- anous as ever the mystics conceived the soul of man or the spirit of Nature to be, we are inclined to hold our breath and think we are reading the denouement of a popular romance. But when Modem Science proclaims such a conclusion we must not forget that it is not the reckless conjecture of ancient speculative philosophy, falsely called

SCIENTIFIO ANALYSIS 251

Science, but the result of the assiduous toil of the laboratory and the most accurate deductions of chemical analysis and mathematical verification. We may well marvel, then, when we learn from such sources that even the atom, which has since the days of Democritus been regarded as the smallest possi- ble unit of matter, is itself but a component of a mass of electrical units, each of which is so small as to be beyond the grasp of the imagination. If, as Lord Kelvin figures out, the old atom of matter measured less than one twenty-five millionth of an inch in diameter, and as Snyder ^ states, that the present unit of matter, the electrical corpuscle, is not more than a tenth part of that, where is the mind that can conjure the infinitesimal minuteness of such a substance, or distinguish between its at- tenuateness and that of which mystics in all ages have conceived as spirit? Indeed it is the conten- tion of this essay that chemical science has suc- ceeded in reducing matter into a pure spiritual substance, and that what we call the soul of man, as I shall soon attempt to show, is in fact of a semi- physical character, if not indeed ultimately ma- terial; but of a material substance so refined and rarefied that it may easily defy the present appre- hended limitations of the laws of matter.

When crude matter in its last analysis dissolves into pure energy, a form of matter which the mind can construe as nothing other than spirit (breath), then it appears to the writer that the long contention between the physicist and the spiritist, the sensa-

1 ^ New Conceptions in Scienoe," p. 142.

262 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

tionalist and the idealist, has come to an end; the battle axe of contention has been shivered, and nothing remains but for both contestants to admit that they have been quarreling needlessly over a subject about which both in times past had been ignorant. But this conclusion affords us the most effective and convincing realization of the unity of Nature which has yet been presented in any age of history. It is true that ancient Vedantic philosophy presents the same unitary theory of the universe, but what ideas these mystics advanced were proffered by their intuition, their keen innate insight into the reality of natural laws, and not by investigation, analysis, laboratory experimentation and the absolute verification of mathematical sci- ence, as is the case with the great students who to- day are revealing the world a-new to us.

The physicists are evidently themselves amazed at the result of their investigations. Sir William Crookes in his address delivered before the Con- gress of Applied Chemistry, June 5 th, 1903, says, with manifest astonishment : '^ For nearly a cen- tury men who devoted themselves to Science have been dreaming of atoms, molecules, ultramundane particles, and speculating as to the origin of mat- ter; and now to-day they have got so far as to ad- mit the possibility of resolving the chemical ele- ments into simpler forms of matter, or even of refining them altogether away into ethereal vibra- tions of electrical energy/* Yet twenty-five years previous to this lecture Crookes had seen so far ahead that he used these wonderful words which

SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS 253

sound more like the outburst of an enthusiast than a calm scientist : ^^ We have actually touched the borderland where matter and farce seem to merge into one another — the shadowy realm between the known and the unknown. I venture to think that the greatest scientific problems of the future will find their solution in this borderland, and even be- yond; here, it seems to me, lie ultimate realities, far-reaching, wonderful." Well, since these words were spoken all that they implied has come true, and not only have far-reaching conclusions been drawn from this borderland in the field of physical chemistry and electricity, but as well in that of philosophy, affecting, indeed, the entire scope of ethics and religion.

For not only as Davy surmised, would chemistry prove that all the amazing manifestations of phys- ical forms and phenomena are but the ceaseless and infinite oonmiutations of two or three primary ele- ments ; but as Faraday far better saw, that but one elemental substance, or *^ infinite centre of power " pervaded all space, and revealed itself in Nature in varying convolutions of itself.

Plaiik physical science, then, has already re- duced matter to an ultimate primary element and that element is electricity. ** The fundamental in- gredient," says Sir Oliver Lodge ^ *^ of which the whole of mutter is made up is nothing more or less than electricity, in the form of an aggre- gate of an unequal number of positive and n^ative electric charges; ... a unification of mat-

1 Romanes Lecture, Oxford, June, 1003.

264 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

ter • . . that goes further than had been hoped, for the substratum is not an unknown and hypothetical protjle, but the familiar electric charge/^

But this conception of the unification of matter is grounded in firm and indisputable scientific fact, and from it Science is now rapidly advancing into the age-long realm of the unknown, with strides so swift as to amaze the intellectual world. For having not only reduced matter to an original or primary substance (an ultimate '^ protyle "), and having learned that this protyle or primary sub- stance is not only electrical in nature, but is in fact merely a form of energy or ethereal vibration ; Science is now awaking to a realization, through laboratory experimentation, that all elements are susceptible of transmutation, and that the old dream of the alchemists is not a mediaeval nightmare, but a demonstrable verity.

" Do you mean," says Robert Kennedy Duncan,^ " to infer that the element of uranium (ekment, mind you) is transformed into a totally different body ? " Yes. We do. We believe that we have here (in the generation of helium from the decom- position of radium) a veritable transmutation of matter just as wonderful as would be the transmu- tation of lead into gold, no more or less. We be- lieve that the alchemists were right, that matter is not only transmutable but transmuting, and that, without the aid of any philosopher's stone, diabolio

1 ** New Knowledge," p. 143.

SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS 266

influences, or even the modem appliances of a scien- tific laboratory.

If, then, Science shall also be able to show that matter is not only always alive, and that such a thing as death is unknown in the universe, but also that matter thinks and seems to be functioned with the capacity of an organized brain, she would ap- parently endow it with all the powers once attributed alone to spirit, and would present an interpretation of the soul, and even of God, which would be in accordance with natural facts, and therefore scien- tific, while revolutionizing biology, ethics and es- chatology.

Is matter endowed with sensibility, intellect, consciousness; that is, does matter feel, think, will and know? Startling as such assertions seem to be, the latest scientific discoveries lead to their assumption. It will not do for the uninformed to set this aside as the mere pretension of unrecog* nized and unauthorized sciolists, for what I am about to record is the sober, sane and convincing conclusion of calm and dignified scientific experts.

CHAPTEK XXII

SENSATION AND INTELLIGENCE IN

MATTER

The old line of demarcation was very sharply drawn between matter, substance, mechanical struc- ture, physiology, organic vitalism on the one hand, and spirit, soul, mind, thought, etc, on the other hand. What was visible in the structural form was regarded as purely material and wholly to be dif- ferentiated from the invisible forces that were sup- posed to reside in, but to be superior to, the living substance which they animated and sustained. The idea of unity or identity between the form and the animating spirit, between the organic brain and the thought that energized it, was regarded not only as untrue but religiously offensive. For, on the one hand, the physicist insisted that life and thou^t, having no existence except in combination with organised matter, and ceasing as soon as such matter passed into decay, necessarily the organic form generated or produced the vital and logical faculties. On the other hand, the metaphysician or meta-physicist insisted that the life and mental force must have antedated the manifestation of the organic living form, because the soul itself, of which the form is but the result, is an eternal principle temporarily incarnate in a dying body.

So long as knowledge was sought through specu- lation no reconciliation was possible between these

2.56

INTELLIGENCE IN MATTER 267

two opposing schools of thought, and had no demonstrable science come to their relief , their atti- tude would be to-day as it was thousands of years ago. But now we are enabled to see where both erred, and where what we call spirit and thought are really identical with matter and form ; yet that^ strange to say, this does not imply absolute perish- ability or mere mechanical process, but presents a physical basis for the spiritual nature and an in- timation of continued existence. This we shall now attempt to show.

The changing views with regard to matter are recognised in the respective conceptions of opaque mass, molecular structure, atomic units (Demo- critus and Dalton), corpuscles of substance (Leur cretiua and Newton) y dynamic monads (Leibnitz) y, centres of force (Boscovitch)^ electric units or ions (Lard Kelvin, Lodge, etc), ethereal vibrations or modes of energy (Crookes, Ramsay, etc,). By fol- lowing the discoveries consequent on these advanc- ing conceptions, we apprehend the higher views of man through the centuries. The first point, then,, that we must here investigate is the statement that matter is not anywhere inert and dead, but is uni- versally pervaded with life. Matter in its last analysis is eternal and universal, and the principle of life, which inheres in matter is consequently likewise universal and eternal. A few years ago such a statement would have been regarded as the gratuitous assertion of the metaphysician without any foundation in natural fact. But to-day we are able to set it forth as the sane and sedate assertion.

258 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

of the most dignified of the physical sciences. As soul and spirit and mind were formerly supposed to be things external to and separate from the body and oiganic function, so life was regarded as a thing, an entity, wholly apart from and diverse to the nature and laws of the physical organism. So accustomed had men grown through the ages to conceive of an involved invisible being, a spirit or a god, as existing in every place where he found a mystery in nature, that when at first he could not understand or explain life and thought and mind, he concluded, they themselves were actual spiritual beings, which existed only temporarily in a mortal body, seeking their departure when the body ceased to live. But the conception of the unity of Nature will not permit us now to entertain any such no- tions ; hence, the leaders of thought have set out to discover what mind, thought and life are, in the same manner that they have undertaken the search for primal or ultimate matter.

They have found, first, of life, that it is not a something, sui generis in Nature, but that it is like all the cognate forces in universal operation, a mode of motion, a form of energy, an aggregation of ethereal waves. Says Haeckel,* " Modem science has shown that the sharp distinction formerly drawn between the organic and the inorganic can- not be sustained, but that the two kingdoms are profoundly and inseparably united."

The continuity of Nature knows no break; it permits no hiatus or chasm in its processes. Life

I " Wonders of Life," p. 28.

INTETJJQENCE IN MATTER 259

did not leap instantaneously from non-life, but evolved in gradual and persistent development. Even Leibnitz, as interpreted by M. Fouille ^ long ago, long before Darwin and Haeckel, with their wonderful discoveries, said ^^ there is no inorganic kingdom ; only a great oi^anic kingdom, of which mineral, vegetable and animal forms are the various developments. Continuity exists everywhere throu^out the world, and life, together with or- ganization, also exists everywhere. Nothing is dead ; life is universaL"

Indeed, if we hold a unitary view of Nature it would be difficult for us to conceive of any other process ; and if she did not pres^it to our observa- tion her method of evolving the inorganic into the organic, without any break or miracle, we should feel ourselves forced to invent one. There is no- where any miracle in Nature, in the sense of a violation of her laws and continuity of method, and whenever men have undertaken to discover any such interruption of her simple methods it has proved to be the invention of some romancer or religious enthusiast. Says Carl Naegeli (quoted by Haeckel in "Wonders of Life"), "The ori- gin of the organic from the inorganic is, in the first place, not a question of experience or experi- ment, but a fact deduced from the law of the ccm- stancy of matter and force. If all things in the material world are casually related, if all phenom- ena proceed on natural principles, organisms, which

1 See art. in Revue des Denx Mondes, Fari8» Oct. 10, llKtty on ** The life of ICatter," by Prof. Dastre.

260 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

are formed of and decay into the Bame matter, must have been derived originally from inorganic com- ponnds/'

In fact the wonders of the chemical laboratory are so rapidly revealing the secret of the origin and process of life that any day we may wake np to its complete revelation, if not indeed to behold a panoramic view of the last great achievement of Nature. Already sncfa startling similarity between the formations of crystals and that of life, both as to the origin of the same and the process of inaug- uration and development, has been observed, that not a few scientists think they find in this discovery the actual secret of the mystery of life. Dastre, a professor at the Sarbonne, Paris, in the article al- ready referred to, says, '^ Gross or brute matter can no longer be placed on one side and living beings on the other. Scientists deliberately speak of ^ the life of matter,' which seems to the uninstructed a contradiction in terms. They discover in certain classes of mineral bodies almost all the attributes of life. They find in others fainter yet undeniable relationship." ^

Snyder goes so far as to assert that the chemical laboratory has distinctly proven that life consists

1 Even while this book is paMing through the press a cable- gram from Paris reads as foUows: ''Antoine Henri Bee- auerel, the physicist, has reported before the Academy of ciences a most interesting demonstration of the life of seeds. Submitted to very powerful life destrovinff tests, dry- ing in vacuum of 263 below sero, they retain their germi- nating force. The conclusion drawn by M. Beoquerel is that life is not a mysterious principle, but a simple phjrsical and chemical function of an organism produced by the substances and forces of its cosmic enyironment."

INTELUGENOE IN MATTER 361

only of fermentatioiu ^^The phTsical proce68 of life is no longer a riddle. It is possible now to de- fine and describe life as precisely as^ let ns say, the making of bread^ or the brewing of beer. Physiology's present answer to the old riddle is very simple: Life is a series of fermentations." ^

Indeed so bold have these ^* reckless '' discoveries become that they now little hesitate to assert that the time is not far distant when actual protoplasm, and the more startling invention of the formation of a protoplasmic form of life, will be one of the achievements of the chemical laboratory.

VirchoVs and Pflegler's assertions that there could have been only one occasion in the history of the universe, when by some accident or some curi- ous association of the chemical molecules they sud- denly originated a new organism, through whose strange mechanism, the force of vitalism or life, first became manifest, which was questioned by Haeckle, is now considered almost a back number, and the belief is entertained, not only as Haeckel contends that Nature may still be repeating the process, but that man himself may yet imitate it, and thai, not only once, but when the secret is dis- covered, again and again ad infinitum. The won- ders of synthetic chemistry have given the hint as to the overwhelming possibilities of the chemical laboratory of the future.

As says Buchner, " When we think of the mag- nificent results of synthetical chemistry, which has succeeded in building up by chemical means, out

i**New ConceptioiiB/' p. 229.

262 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

of none but inorganic substances, a whole mass of materials and bodies, which were thought to be producible only by the vital activity of plants and animals, such as: urea, alcohol, ether, grape-sugar, racemic acid, ocalic acid, formic acid, butyric acid, acetic acid, lactic acid, fat, amyloids, alkaloids, etc, • • • that man need be no visionary who holds that chemistry may at some future day suc- ceed in artificially producing living protoplasm*'' ^

All this, a few decades ago, would have been de- nounced as the sheerest materialism, utterly unten- able by science, and undesirable in philosophy or ethics. But to-day we discern a higher view of things. We see nothing crass or offensive in a material conception of power once thought to be abstractiiy spiritual, for in the more comprehensive, unitary view of the universe we now discern that what we called material is, in its last analysis, spiritual and what we had contradistinguished as spiritual is itself but a more refined expression of physical substance.

Simple, inert matter, always supposed to be dead and feelingless, had not been associated in thought or reason with any of the qualities that appertain to organic living bodies. Therefore the insinuation that such base metals, as silver, lead, iron, steel, etc should be endowed with any of the faculties always attributed only to things oi^nically and palpably alive would, until our very day, have been regarded as the vain imaginings of a raving romancer. But recent observations have compelled the condusion

1 " Force and Matter/' p. 144.

INTELLIGENCE IN MATTES 263

tliat these metals have indeed the tendency to sensi- bilitj) to feeling; that they express a sense of dan- ger^ and present a front of resistance to attack ; that thej have their likes and dislikes; that they grow tired and require rest; that they must have sleep and can awake refreshed and equipped for more strenuous labor. These purely human terms are indeed now applicable to the mineral and inorganic world. Who has not often wondered at the cu- rious freaks of a piece of mechanism which at one time will work with such smoothness and at oiher times seems so cranky and balks at every turn; who that has ridden a bicyde has not at times fdt that his wontedly trusty machine has suddenly as- sumed the queer characteristics and idiosyncrasies of a Texan broncho or a wild coyote, refusing to go anywhere the rider desires, and balking at every command? Who has not wondered that his razor, which has been laid away in disgust for several days, like a boy suspended from school because of bad deportment, when removed from its sheath and again tried, without honing or even stropping, has grown so kindly accommodating and unusually keen, that his shock of hair disappears as if by magic!

Doubtless mudi of the disposition resident in the machine or tool is acquired from the user ; but there is a deeper law than that, which science has recently revealed, that causes us indeed to wonder. That law is that many of these freaky changes in dispo- sition and characteristics are caused by the inherent quality or attribute of the metal itself, and that, be-

S64 MODEBN LIGHT ON DOCOBTALITT

caiue of abuse, overwoik, iU-management, or other, condition^ its nature for the time being changes and the work it can do is not at such times np to its normal possibilities.

Jagardis Chunder Boee, the brilliant East In- dian scientist has proven beyond rational dispute that what Lord Kelvin first metaphorically referred to as ^^ the fatigue ^' of metals, is an actual fact* Kelvin noticed that the natural elasticity of a metal became tired after a certain use, just as a man's arm grows heavy and refuses its accustomed elastic play after too much use. And Bose went 80 far as to show that metals could be poisoned and put into the state known as death by certain acids. Just as when a man knots his muscles and resists an attack, steel also, as M. Charles Edward Guil- laume asserts, ^^ sets up an heroic resistance^'' and by the same method.

Memory has also been asserted as a faculty of inert matter, as when an old wire is affected by a ^* torsional force " it is differently affected than a new wire ; for as Boltzman declared, ^' a wire that has been twisted or drawn out remembers for a cer- tain time the deformation to which it has been sub- jected/' »

Enough has perhaps been presented to let the reader tmderstand to what an extent the line of de- marcation, always supposed to prevail between so called living and dead matter, has been abrogated

1 For the facts here referred and a far greater Ifat of analo- gies between organic and inorganic subrtancest see the arti- cle by Dastre already referred to and ''The Response of Katter/' by J. C. Bose.

INTELLIGENCE IN MATTER 266

bj leoent scientific discovery. ^^ Just as there is no longer a missing link in the chain of Darwinian evolution, so there is no longer a dividing line be- twe^i plant and animal, between mineral and veg- etable, between the animate and the inanimate. There is no ^ dead ' matter/' is the last and highest dictum of authoritative science as enunciated by Carl Snyder.*

The distinguishing line between the two worlds has indeed been so completely obliterated that we are no longer justified in speaking of thou^t, con- sciousness and reason as existent alone in the highly developed organisms of man and the lower animal kingdoms, for germinally they are found even in the atom whose associative capacity never fails it in the struggle for existence. When Benjamin Frank- lin caught the electric spark from the skies which revolutionized industrial science and modem civil- ization, it was but little supposed that that same magical discovery would also give us a new psychol- ogy and a new science of biology. Yet it seems to be true. Eor, now we are coming to learn that life is but little more than electricity ; that is, as all sub- stance is in its ultimate nature, electrical, life be- ing but the manifestation of a highly complex form of infinite matter, is generated, sustained, and functionally operated by the persistence and play of the electrical force. The marvellous researches of Loeb and Matthews, in recent years, seem to have conclusively proven these positions. But not only is life a form or mode of electricity, but it seems

1 ** New Conception in Sdenoe/' p. 270.

266 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITY

also to be the principle which underlies the activity of the brain and manifests itself in the thoughts of the mind. The nerves are now recognized as a com- plex system of conducting wires over which the elec- trical current, in the form of nervous energy, plays persistently in the generation of human and animal thought, ultimating in the self -consciousness of the higher forms of life. Indeed the nerves are now known to be not only conductors of electricity in the form of nervous eneigy, but they are actual gen- erators of it; ^^they generate it by metabolic changes occurring in tiieir interior, that is the nerve marrow and axis-cylinder." By these metabolio changes the electricity is first set free and then con- verted or transmuted into nerve energy* But nerve energy, and especially the energy that is exercised in the activity of the gray matter of the brain, we know is the force utilized in thought Moreover, the thought that enters into consciousness by way of a central nervous system is merely, we might say, the personification of the universal thought-force that pervades Nature. There is not a substance, not a chemical body, not a mineral, not a vegetable, yea in truth not even an atom, that does not seem to be endowed with and constantly employing some mode of thinking. The universe is full of thought ; and what we call our personal thoughts are merely the result of the play upon our organs of the uni- versal thinking of Nature. We are first thought into, and then we respond with our own thoughts ; just as the plant is first played upon by the impal- pable sun ray and then responds with visible, car-

INTELLiaENCE IN MATTER 267

bonic forms of life. The whole world is full of spiritual impulses which are idoitical in Nature and differ only in expression throu^ diversified avenues. ^* If the molecules possess something that is related, however distantly, to sensation, it must be comfort- able to be able to follow their attractions and re- pulsions ; uncomfortable when they are forced to do otherwise. Thus we get common spiritual bond in all physical phenomena. The mind of man is only the highest development of the spiritual processes that animate the whole of Nature.'* (NcBgeli.)

Such conclusions of science do not compel the de- scent of philosophy into the Avemus of materialism. As we have already had occasion to insist, the ap- parent distinction between materialism and spirit- ualism is an error. If we will but use the terms substance and energy, we shall perhaps more clearly see the erroneousness of the old interpretation. Substance is the universal essence of Nature. Be- yond it God cannot ascend, beneath it the basest metal cannot descend. Eor, like our conception of Deity it is ubiquitous and universal. But energy is likewise wherever substance may be.

Substance is the body, energy is the soul, of Na- ture. Between substance and energy there is no distinction, save in manifestations* In essence both are one ; substance assuming the office of the matrix, energy, the force that imposes the impression. They are not separate, but identical; — energy manifesting as substance in material form, in its lower or thicker densities, and as mentality, spirit or thou^t, in its finer and more rarefied phases of

268 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

activity. There is, in fact, and can be no actual warfare between the existing schools of Monism, one of which insists on Snbstance (Haeckel) as the ultimate essence of Nature, and the other (Ost- wald) on Energy. In the last analysis there are not two natures, substance and energy ; for if there were then Nature would be dualistic and not monis- tic; there is but one essence, substance or energy, which reveals itself in the multifarious phases of material and mental phenomena throughout the uni- verse.

On this perhaps new, but truly scientific, foun- dation, a new religion, a new ethics, and a new psy- chology, may be reared which will satisfy the high- est intelligence of mankind.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SEARCH FOR THE SEAT OF

THE SOUL

Once this idea of the Unity of Nature is clearly grasped it affords a pleasurable appreciation of the unity of knowledge and the identity of the forces or powers that operate in the generation of all forms of matter and mind^ or of substance and spirit. In fact the terms *^ mind " and *^ soul '' will necessarily call for new definitions to distinguish them from the false conceptions which men entertained in the times of ignorance. We are no longer permitted scientifically to regard these faculties as distinct forms or entities, abstract and independent realities ; but, on the contrary, must conceive of them as ex- pressions of complex forms of life, or as distinctive forces that are revealed in the operation of the high- est and most complex organisms of matter. If we assume that all expressions of matter are necessarily materialistic; that is, but expressions of crude or in- ert substance ; then the new definitions of mind and soul, which recent scientific research compels, may be denominated materialism, pure and simple. But, if as we have attempted to show, the most recent sience proves to us that such a thing as dead or inert matter has no existence, and that life is universal ; then, not only is matter in all its forms the manifes- tation of a spiritual energy, but the highest expres- sions of conscious and intelligent mentality are

269

270 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

nothing more than variations of the same energy which is expressed in the vegetable and the min- eraL

As we have learned that the physical form of man has come by slow stages from the physical body of the ape and the inferior animals, we must also learn that what we call the mind and the soul came by the same method of evolution into the culmina- tion of the lofty intelligence of the human being. Further, we must learn that there is no chasm be- tween the apparently unconscious state of inorganic matter and the conscious and intelligent state of man; but that there is a manifest nexus between them which can be traced in the movements of mat- ter and the growth of the brain and psychic facul- ties of human beings.

We must learn that the germ of the soul existed in the primal substance out of which all material forms are evolved ; that every faculty of the intelli- gent mind, such as perception, sensation, memory, and even reflection, had its genesis in the germinal mental activity of chemical atoms and material molecules. That the soul already existed potenti- ally and genetically in the atoms that aggregate to constitute the body and brain of human beings, and that what we call the mind of a man is but the ac- cumulation, in a sort of commonwealth, of an in- finite number of minds resident in the millions of cells that constitute the organic constituency of hu- man beings. These statements are but the latest and indisputable deductions of biological science.

It, therefore, behooves us in this study of the

THE SEAT OF THE SOUL 271

soul and its future to carefully review the founda- tions of such conclusions.

However, in order that we may fully appreciate the distance to which modem thought has travelled from the traditional, and that which, but a few dec- ades ago was in vogue, we must not fail to recall to the reader's mind the curious and specific notions that were entertained concerning the souL Believ- ing, as our forefathers did for centuries, that the soul was a particular being or entity, but tempora- rily residing in the human body, varied and puerile,^ indeed, were the interpretations which were made of it. Whether it was an emanation of the infinite substance as held by the most ancient Oriental na- tions ; or the divine breath breathed into the newly formed embryo at conception ; or an actual spiritual body, fully organized as is the physical body, a sort of psychic replica of the physical organism; man never ceased to speculate not only as to its origin, but also as to its seat or residence in the human frame.

Because there has been so much confusion of thought as to the nature of the soul, the effort to find its seat in the human organism has resulted in many and sometimes almost ludicrous conjec- tures. The brain, the heart, the blood, the lungs, the liver, the nerves, have by different thinkers been respectively conceived as the especial residence of the illusive visitor of heaven. Some of the ancient Greeks presented most ingaiious notions. Oritias, the Sophist, regarded the bloody as the seat and substratum of the soul.

»73 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Plato, assumiDg that the faculties of perception and representation as well as cognition were the especial instruments of the soul seated it in the heady thus anticipating Thomas Willis (1664) who '^ looked upon the whole brain, and more particu- larly upon the corpora striata, as the oi^n of the intellect," (Buchner) and hence the soul's seat Even Hippocrates (500 B. C.) the father of the medical art also regarded the brain as the seat of the spiritual organ. But Aristotle, always the keenest and most analytic reasoner among the an- cients, divided the soul into four sections, we might say; or more accurately conceived of four distinct souls resident in the organs of living bodies. He calls these the vegetative, the sensitive, the appeti- tive and the rational, as the activities of the body ascend from the lower organs to those of the brain ; thus somewhat anticipating some of the modem physiologists who assume that there is not merely one brain, but several, such as the solar plexus, the abdominal, the ganglionic, the medullar, and the cortical, brain.

Among modem philosophers there has been a thick mantle of mystery ever thrown about the soul. " We have no cognition of what is strictly the es- sence of the soul. We cannot reach the Ego itself with our consciousness," says Hebart. " It is a simple essence, without parts and without plurality in its quality." Another, Frohschammer, says, '^The inmost essence, the Ego, is unattainable to our cognition." " The Ego," says Eant, " is an absolute unity, and it is no object of outer sense^

THE SEAT OF THE SOUL 278

is immateriaL'' '' The rational soul is simple, un- compounded and immaterial, not composed of mat- ter and form ; for matter can never think and move of itself as does the soul," is the effort at exact defi- nition made by McClintock and Strong.^

Amid this great confusion of thought one philoso- pher who ranks among the most capable and orig- inal of all ages, Eene Descartes, presented the most curious and ingenious notion as to the soul's seat of any modem thinker. His theory of the vortices and the mechanical structure of the universe was leading him rapidly into sheer ma;terialisnL He so described man and animals that they could be com- pared only with automata, and be considered but machines. In order to escape the bald material- ism of this conclusion he denies the existence of the graduating vegetative and sensitive souls, among the inferior creations, which the Aristotelians pro- claimed, and insists that '^only one soul, the ra- tional, remains, and that is restricted to man. Sea- son and thought do not belong to brutes; there is an impassable gulf fixed between man and the lower animals." Having involved himself so deeply in contradictions and confusion, Descartes proceeds to march into deeper jungles by striving to differen- tiate the soul itself as apart from the body. '^ Whilst all organic processes in man go on mechan- ically, still the first affirmation of his system was that man was a thinking being. . The mind, there- fore, is not to be r^arded as a mere spectator, like a boatman in a boat Of course a unity between

1 Qydo. Theolog. lit arf Soul."

274 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTAIITY

mind and body is impossible, as described. And yet there is unity of composition, really one, and, in a sense, indivisible. There is one point in the human brain, however, midway, single and free, which may in a special way be called the seat of the brain. This is the so-called conarion, or pineal gland, where in a minimized point the mind, on the one hand, and the animal spirits, on the other, meet and communicate.'' ^

This is the curious and almost ludicrous method Descartes, one of the world's profoundest philoso- phers, adopts to free himself from the insinuation of materialistic and atheistic associations.

What wonder the clear and logical mind of Benedict De Spinoza revolted from the apparent insincerity of the Frenchman and thus rebukes him, with almost discourteous severity:

^ Such, in 80 far as I can understand him, is the opinion of this distinguished philosopher; and I must confess that had it been less recondite, less ingenious, I should scarcely have expected anything of the kind from him. I cannot, indeed, sufiSciently express my wonder that a philosopher who lajrs it down broadly that nothing is to be inferred save from self-evident propositions, and nothing to be aflSrmed save that which is clearly and distinctly apprehended, who so frequently accuses the schoolmen with attempting to explain things obscure by occult qualities — that he, I say, should assume an hypothesis more obscure than any the most occult quality." *

All these definitions are manifestly the result

1 See Encyclopndia Brittanica, Art. " Descartes." 2 '' Life, Correapondenoe and Ethics," Willis, p. 822.

THE SEAT OF THE SOUL 276

of attempting to establish a psychological science unrelated to physiology* The soul and the body in this view are separable^ contrary if not contradic- tory in nature, and only temporarily united. This would seem to make the human being a house di- vided against itself. If the soul is different from the body, if essentially it is unlike and contradio- tory, and yet is in Nature, we are compelled to ask, Whence has it come 9 If from the same source as the body, then how can it be unlike it in essence ? If from a source different to that of the body, then there must be something out of Nature which enters into it ; thus confusing and contradicting the well known law of the conservation of energy. For Nature cannot at once be itself and yet more than itself. All that exists in Nature must be in and of it; the body and the soul, then, if we allow for dual existence, must be of the same Nature and essentially alike. Yet, says Lotze, ^^ The soul neither rises from the body nor from nothing ; but goes forth from the substance of the infinite with the same substantiality which pertains to all the actual in Nature that has sprung from the same in- finite source'^; but as if in contradiction of this definition which almost approaches one that is scientific, he immediately confuses it in the same paragraph by saying, ^^ The essential nature of the soul in itself remains unknown to us before it comes into a situation within which alone its life un- folds itself." This, however, is no more true of the soul than of the body ; for what is regarded as ** the essential nature " of all things is yet and ever

276 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

has been in dispute ; and is being but timidly ap- proached by the students of modem electricity and the physical sciences.

It seems almost impossible for even the ablest thinkers and metaphysicians to free themselvea from the ancient dual conception of the soul and body, fearing, manifestly, as did Descartes, that they will be accused of that bugaboo ^^material- ism,'' should they be irrefragably logical and follow their premisses to their unavoidable conclusion* Either the soul and body are alike or unlike in na- ture and essence. There can be no terHum quid. If they are alike in nature then they must originate from the same source and can be separable only in the sense of dissolving again into their original ele- ments as all other substances. If they come from the same source they are essentially the same. If they are unlike in nature or essence, then they must have each a source different from the other. What is that source t It can be only of the same essence as that of all Nature or of a different essence. If it is of the same essence, then whatever is derived from it is essentially the same. If it is of another essence, then a force enters into Nature which is other than Nature herself, which is a contradiction in terms, and impossible.

Hence, manifestly, and which conclusion again sustains the conception of the unity of the uni- verse, soul and body being derived from the same source are in nature and quality essentially iden* ticaL J. G. Fichte apparently approaches a scien- tific view when he says, '^ The soul is no more than

THE SEAT OF THE SOUL 277

Nature ; it is a phenomenon of the senses '^ ; but is immediately contradicted by L H. Fichte, who like all the circumscribed metaphysical philosophers^ that shy at accurate and determining ^ienoe, says, ^^ The fact of self -consciousness can only be ex- plained on the supposition that the soul is a real essence, distinct from organism. . . • Soul and body are diverse substances/' etc.

Now, there is but one method by which we can free psychology from all this metaphysical and un- scientific confusion. That is by regarding it as an experimental science and studying the soul in the same manner as we study the body; or rather, by making an effort to discover it, and then subjecting it to analysis; but if in our search we do not find it to be an actual reality, but merely a phenomenon of the rational sense, that is, but a mental abstrac- tion, then to fearlessly say so, and let the issues of life rest with it.

As I have intimated, before we attempt any in- terpretation or analysis of the soul we must first acquire a correct knowledge of the origin, compo- sition and nature of living organisms from monera to mankind. We shall find that all organic life takes its origin from the same physical source, and in its primal state is absolutely identical. We shall further find that all life beginning with the primal protoplasmic cell, increases by self-division into a multiplicity of individual cells, all of which unite into a commonwealth, forming a congeries of nucleated centres or colonies, controlled by one cen- tral system of neural cells. Again, we shall find

278 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

that these minute cells, or micro-organisms, each de- velopes its own independent mentality or psychic force, which enables it to institute a cellular au- tonomy, the submission of which, as the result of aeonic evolution and discipline, to a central or con- trolling mentality, which functions through the most refined nervous tissues of the organism, be- comes the basis of intelligence, consciousness, self- consciousness and individuality, as life evolves from the lowest to the highest forms.

Following the suggestion of this physiological development through all phases of organic life, we shall arrive first at a scientific definition and under- standing of ^' life,'' as a force in Nature cognate with the recognized forces of the natural sciences ; second, we shall be able to discern the primal origin of mind as an energy functioning as a natural force in all organic forms from the most undeveloped to the most complex ; and, third, we shall see that what has so long been called the soul is in fact the cen- tralization or focalization of all these cellular men- talities in a supreme personal intelligence, which constitutes the controlling consciousness. This is the long-supposed mysterious "presence" which men have called the soul of human beings.

Before we proceed with this investigation and the attestations of unquestionable scientific author- ity we must first override the traditional delusion concerning the supposed absence of intelligence in the lower animal kingdom.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE INTELLIGENCE OF LOWER

ANIMATE

Since Lindsay and Bomanes wrote 00 compre^ hensiveljy and with ench revolutionary information, concerning the intelligence of animals, the subject has grown so popular that it will not be necessary here to go deeply into it. We desire merely to lay before the reader a few indubitable and generally accepted facts which apparently prove beyond dis- pute that the lower animal kingdom, from some of the most minute insect species to the family of apes, is endowed with the faculty of intelligence which is in every particular akin to that of human* kind.

I would first call attention to the emotional nature of the monkey species, especially the ape families. It is well known that deep feeling is- the basis of deep thinking; and that, indeed, thought were impossible were it not preceded by some emo- tion that awakens it In the study of the natural emotions of the inferior kingdoms we are thus en* abled to learn in what manner their intelligence both antedated and is kindred with that of man- kind. It appears that the authorities agree in dis- covering in the ape all the human emotions, such as pleasure, grief, anger, cunning, deceit, etc. Mr. James Forbes, in his " Oriental Memoirs,'^ ^ nai-

1 See Ifan and His Anceeton, by G. Morris, p. 76.

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280 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

rates how, when one of his hunting party had slain a female monkey in a banyan tree and carried it to the tenty forty or fifty of her mates gathered round and threatened to make an attack. But when overmastered by a fowling-piece, most of them re- treated, the leader, however, standing his ground, still threatening. Seeing this art did not succeed, he changed his tactics suddenly, and coming to the door of the tent set up a mournful lamentation, and with appealing gesture begged for the dead body. His appeal was so human-like and pitiful that the himter gave him the carcass, and was so overcome by the manifest grief of the successful leader he could never again shoot a monkey. > Darwin, in his famous work,^ narrates a remark- able scene between two chimpanzees, expressing a sudden sense of pleasure so like to that of human beings as to be incredible to the uninformed. He says when the chimpanzees, who were perfect strangers, first met, they sat for a while opposite each other in temporary silence, then began to rub lips together, far protruding them; during which expressions of tenderness one of the animals caress- ingly put his hand on the shoulder of the other. Then, as if with a sudden burst of affectionate emo- tion, they folded each other in their arms. " Aft- erwards they stood up, each with one arm on the shoulder of the other, lifted up their heads, opened their mouths, and yelled with delight I " Who can question that in such intuitive recognition of kin-

1 " Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals/' p. 214.

INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS 281

dred spirits a human note was touched in these ancestral animals? Many incidents of a similar character might be given concerning apes, but so much has been written on that subject we may pre- sume the reader is sufficiently informed.

As to the smaller insects, such as ants and bees, so much is not known, or at least has been more recently revealed. We all know that these small insects, with such infinitesimal brains, institute communal colonies, have perfect forms of govern- ment, with civil and military branches, set out on regular tours of conquest under thorough discipli- narians for leaders, retreat in orderly manner, and follow up a victory to complete success. But per- haps all of us do not know of certain acts which they perform that seem to call for even a higher degree of intelligence than those mentioned.

Yet Haeckel ^ informs us of certain cattle-keeping and dairy-attending ants that seem so human we can scarcely accept the facts without wonder. " Among the most remarkable phenomena,*' he says, " in this extremely interesting field of life is certainly the cattle-keeping of certain ants, which tend plant-lice for the sake of their milk, and r^ularly collect their honey-juice. Even more remarkable is the slave- holding of the large red ants, which steal the yoimg of the small black species and rear them to slave- labor. Numerous observations have established the astoundingly high intellectual development of these little articulated animals beyond all doubt''

Many remarkable incidents have recently been

1 " Evolution of Man," Vol. II, p. 443.

282 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

brought to light which would seem to indicate ini- tial intelligence in the lower animals which appears to be of a higher order. Grant Allen calls our at- tention to a piece of information concerning some of the Australian marsupials, especially the kangaroo, presented in Sir William Maxwell's ^^ Memoirs of the Months." It seems that the ordinary female kangaroo which lives in the wooded regions carries its young in a pouch in front. But in the desert regions a species has been found whose fe- males carry their " poucheries " behind. " They (the young) look behind and the sand does not get into their eyes; it is displaced by the mother as she advances." From this it would seem that at some time the mother kangaroo must have shifted the pouchy either by sidling or by pushing it around with her mouth, as she ran against the sands, when driven into the deserts; and as many of them as succeeded in so turning and protecting the pouch caused their young to survive, and thus established in many centuries a back-pouch species in place of the front poudi.

The instinct of animals was supposed to have been a supernatural endowment for their preserva- tion. But scientists now teach us how gradually the reflex instinctive habits developed into higher and semi-conscious intelligence. Just as in the his- tory of the human race every now and then some leader in thought, in art, in war, in civil govern- ment, in the drama and literature arises who estab- lishes a new pace, or a higher standard for the race, after which all future rivals set their efforts,

INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS 283

so manifestly among the inferior animal kingdoms every now and then some such germinal genius has sprung forth that caused a larger development of the faculties of intelligence among thenu Speak- ing of this remarkahle fact, Grant Allen says: ^^ There must have been a time when some amaz- ingly clever tailor bird took to sewing a nest, for the first time, and when the first mason wasp made a clay pot for the eggs, on purpose. . . . Then there was a fish called the jaculator, or shooting fish. He shoots his prey by means of a drop of water projected from his mouth with considerable force and unerring aim. The prey is a fly, and you cannot catch the jaculator with a dry fly, for he would not take the hook in his mouth, but marely shoot a drop of water at it. • • • Now, this habit of the jaculator may be an inherited instinct, but some jacuUUor mvst first have invented the trick, and he was as clever as the savage who first invented the blow-pipe, or puff and dart.''

As Mr. Bomanes says, '^ The invention shows a high degree of intelligence on the part of these fish-' es' ancestors."

Beferring to the fact brought to light by Dr. Bae in Bomanes' work on '^ Animal Intelligence '^ (p. 481) that when a trap is set for wolves, in which the bait is attached to a string that will cause a trigger to snap when it is snatched, the wiser ones among them will ingeniously bite off the string be- fore they touch the bait The fact that all of them do not do so, but most of them thoughtlessly snap at the bait and are shot, while only a few wise ones

284 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

bite the stringy brings forth this comment from Mr.' Allen : ** This devemess is not instinctive ; it does not come from a habit in the blood of the wolf ^ be- cause his ancestors never saw a gun. The wolves have instantly thought out for themselves the na- ture of the connection between the string and the firing gun. • • • Again, foxes will escape a trap by digging a trench in die snow, in a cross di- rection to the bait^ and then will lie safe in the trench and will pull the bait so cautiously that the shot, when the gun is fired, goes over their heads. A military engineer could do nothing more clever. . . • AH this cleverness in foxes is not 'in- stinctive/ but inherited; they have reasoned the thing outy much more quickly than a savage man could reason. • • • It is not strange that sav- ages should thinky as they do, that birds and beasts can talk, like birds and beasts in fairy tales. The cleverest thing I ever knew a bird to do was this : Two gentlemen were walking by the River Test, and frightened a water hen into a hole in the 'camp- sheeting/ a kind of planking beside the stream. One of the brood did not come to the water hen at her call, so she pushed a bit of water weed through the hole in the camp-sheeting and allured him into her hiding place. This, of course, was a reasoned action, not a result of inherited habit"

Perhaps we have afforded sufficient illustration of the relation existing between the instinct of ani- mals and the intelligence of mankind to prove, first, that the intelligence in the lower kingdoms is ger- minally precisely like that of human beings, and

INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS 285

second, that the mechanical habit, known as '^ in- stinct," passes readily and without a break into individual and racial intelligence.

The latter fact should be somewhat emphasized in this investigation; for it is our effort to show that in all the gradations of intelligence and con- sciousness from primitive protoplasmic irritability to consciousness of the personal self there is an un- interrupted development To show that habitual or instinctive habit will at times develop even in the most inferior animals into instant and individ- ual intelligence, I wiU call attention to an incident Lubbock gives us in '^The Senses of Animals." ^^ One solitary wasp, sphex flavi pennis, which pro- visions its nest with small grasshoppers, when it re- turns to its cell, leaves the victim outside and goes down for a moment to see that all is right. During the absence of one M. Fabre moved the grasshop- per a little aside; out came the sphex, soon found her victim, dragged it to the mouth of the cell and left it as before. Again and again M. Fabre moved the grasshopper, but eveiy time the sphex did pre- cisely the same thing till M. Fabre was worn out All insects of this colony had the same curious habit But on trying the same experiment with the same aphex the following year, after two or three disap- pointments she learned wisdom by experience and carried the grasshopper directly down into the cell"

CHAPTER XXV

MORAL CHARACTER AMONG LOWER

ANIMALS

Darwin^ after giving an infinite number of illus- trations of animal intelligence merging in human inteligence says : ^ ^^ The difference in mind be- tween man and the higher animals^ great as it is, is certainly one of degree and not of kind." But intelligence is not the only quality which we are accustomed to regard as the expression of the human soul. There is also and especially the moral qual- ity or the ethical sense. Has the investigation of the naturalists justified us in the assumption that the element of morality, which establishes the foundations of human society and stable govern- ment, exists germinally in the antecedent inferior animal kingdom, and from which by gradual devel- opment mankind have come to their ethical under- standing? To those who entertain but traditional views and refuse to observe the facts of Nature such an assumption is both gross and gratuitous. They are positive that the idea of the moral law inheres only in man, and that he alone is capable of moral development and social improvement.

The testimony of all unprejudiced naturalists seems unbroken and unequivocal to the effect that animals give many signs of being possessed of a moral sense. One of the cardinal qualities of a

1" Descent of Man," p. 128.

286

MORAI, CHARACTEE IN ANIMALS 287

human child is that of docility. This we find in a marked degree in dogs, cats and other domesticated animals^ but no less in elephants, which in some respects are among the most intelligent of animals. Hooker narrates an incident illustrating the docility of the elephant, mingled with a certain wilfuhiess on occasions which gives it much resemblance to the qualities of a human child. When it was wilful it balked and but little service could be gotten out of it; just like a wilful child. But when it was good it was so docile that merely at the request of its rider, who was a geologist in search of new speci- mens, it would pick up any rock he desired with its trunk and lift it over its head to him sitting on its back.

If we regard the moral sense as a divinely given faculty in the human soul, then we must, of course, expect to find in all human history the same moral standards prevailing. However, we know that this is not so, and therefore must conclude that the sense of moral integrity has come gradually to mankind as the result of experience. This we discover to be true in the varying ideas which have prevailed even with regard to the cardinal principles of the decalogue. We cannot, for instance, as Darwin re- minds us,^ condemn the standards of morality ex- isting among bees who consider it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and where the mothers rival each other in killing their fertile daughters ; because we recall that human morals has passed though simi- lar low stages in the course of its development.

1 " Descent of Man," p. 100.

288 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Man in the savage state^ out of which he has come into the more refined ideas of civilization^ believed in murder, infanticide, cannibalism, polyandry, promiscuity, indeed, forcing the women into sexual tools for the pleasulre of the males and the increase of the population* The kilUng of the sick, feeble and diseased, among the nomad tribes is universaL

The development of the nobler qualities of the soul, such as affection, filial and social duty, amia- bility and love, is manifest when we go from the nomads and individual wanderers among the ani- mals to those who run in herds.

One of the most remarkable facts in the evolu- tion of animal morality is that when sociability is developed through association, the notion of self- preservation evolves into herd- or flock- or race-pres- ervation. The self of the individual merges in the self of the community. We have indeed in these lower animals not only an anticipation of the possibilities of himian society in its highest form, but its prophecy. I have room here for only a few illustrations of this newly observed fact In a noble work by Dr. Hutchinson ^ the following story of how the herds of horses defend themselves against attacking wolves is given. ''When the alarm is sounded by the sentinel of the herd, the horses and mares rush not away from the danger, but towards one another and rapidly form a compact mob in the centre of the valley. The colts and yearlings are pushed into the centre while the adults form a

I'^The Gospel According to Darwin," p. 122; see aleo

•* Mutual Aid/' by Prince Kropotkin.

MOEAL CHAKACTER IN ANIMALS 289

ring around them, facing outward, 8o that whether the snarUng and digappointed pack of the grey devils of the plains attack the regiment in front, flank or rear, or all three at once, they find themselves every- where confronted by an unbroken- rank of snap- ping yellow ivories and dancing iron hoofs, driven with the force of triphammers, any attack upon which will only result in a mouthful of their own teeth or a broken skull. It is the ' human wall ' of Sempach, the hollow square of Waterloo, in its original form, and like them it can defy any foe short of the bullet. Should a mare or colt be sur- rounded by the wolves before they can join the regiment, the latter moves swiftly but steadily to their assistance led by its war chief, the oldest and the ruling stallion of the herd. He alone takes no part in the formation of the circle, but trots proudly out from it in the direction of the threatened at- tack, and woe betide the wolf who ventures near enough to be overtaken before he can regain the broken ground of the nearest foot-hills."

In this remarkable incident of war we discern the effect of association upon the affections; the fra- ternal and filial relationship existing between the animals, and may observe in it an illustration of how the morals of human beings also developed in like manner.

If unselfishness is one of the moral qualities of the higher stages of human society, then surely we cannot deny that where such a quality is revealed among the inferior animals they must be possessed of the same spiritual impulse that generated it»

290 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Prince Kropotkin, a world-wide obseryer, says, '^ Mutual aid within the community, self-devotioni grown into a habit, and very often self-sacrifice for the common welfare, are the rule."

We do not question that where such qualities are found among human beings, we regard them as qualities of the soul ; if we attribute them in man to the soul, why, if we find they exist in animals, must we not also believe that they are possessed of souls of which these attributes are the manifestations ?

'^Neither morphology, nor chemistry, nor macros- copy, nor microscopy is capable of discovering an es* sential difference between human and animal brains; and this accounts for the absolute failure that has at- tended all the attempts made by some scientists even down to our own time, to discover any such character- istics or essential differences, and on the strength of these to assign to man a special place and classification in natural history. . . . Love, faithfulness, grat- itude, the sense of duty, piety, consciousness, friend- ship and love of one's neighbor, compassion and self- abnegation, the feeling of right and wrong, nay even pride, jealousy, hatred, craftiness, treachery, vindic- tiveness, inquisitiveness, are as well to be found among animals as premeditation, sagacity, the highest degree of cunning, foresight, thought for the future, and so forth. Nay, the animal knows and practices even the institutes or principles of political economy and social life, of slavery and precedence, of domestic and rural economy, of education, nursing the sick and medicine ; it puts up the most wonderful fabrics in the shape of houses, caves, nests, roads, bridges ; animals hold meet^- ings and joint deliberations; they initiate trials of

MORAL OHABAOTEB IK ANIMALS 291

criminals and culprits; they consult on definite plans and projects by aid of a well-developed language con« sisting of sonnds, signs and gestures; • . . they are in a word as much and even more highly endowed beings than most men know or dream of/' ^

It seemsy then, conclusive that if we are to judge of the existence of a soul in a physical organism by its manifestations as intelligence, emotion and rational consciousness, we are forced to admit that all the kingdoms of inferior physical beings have souls as well as the human kingdom. We are alsa forced to admit that just as ethical ideas evolved from lower phases to the highest among human be- ings by slow stages, so among the inferior animals moral habits also ascended from low mechanical or instinctive stages to those of rational apprehension and cultivation. It is a mistake to assert, as was often done before the days of exact scientific study, that there can be no ethical development among animals ; that they are bound and limited by instinc- tive and hereditary environment beyond which they cannot traveL But this is erroneous ; for we learn that the first nest of birds were incorrect and incon- venient, and that the cuckoo acquired such poor ability in this regard that it stole into the nests of other birds to lay its eggs. We find that by fer- tilizations and crossings, by natural and sexual selection, plant and animal forms of life are not only morphologically altered, but that they undergo permanent changes in their physical and moral qual- ities.

1 ** Mind in Animab/' and '* Love Among Beasts/' Buchner.

292 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

But with T^ard to the moral qualities the argument is sometimes advaneed that it is im- possible to find the roots of human morals deeply grounded in those of the antecedent morals of ani- maky and, therefore the world of ethics ^^ may be regarded as composed of unlike halves^ which unite centrally to form a whole." These two halves may be called the intuitive and the inductive. The for- mer is supposed to apply to the animal worlds the latter to the human. But our knowledge of the /subconscious life in human beings, which may be called the intuitive or instinctive lif e, is so mani- festly, as we shall see later on in this work, the outgrowth of the antecedent conscious life of intelli- gent action, the one merging palpably in the other, that to assume the great gulf between them above indicated is undoubtedly erroneous.

It seems to be now admitted that all mental and moral capacities have come to the human race through an infinite series of organic modifications which have gradually ascended from the lower to the higher animal kingdoms.

Herbert Spencer puts this thought tersely : * "I believe that the experiences of utility organized and consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been producing corresponding modifications, which, by continued transmission and accumulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral intuition — certain emotions, correspond- ing to right and wrong oonduct, which have no ap-

1 Letter to Mr. Mill, quoted In Darwin's ** Descent of Mna," p. 125.

MOBAL OHABACTEB IN ANIMALS 298

parent basis in the individual experiences of utility."

That isy hj slow stages mere physical irritability, caused by environment^ as in the amcebe, develops into physical instincts or reflex actions, as fleeing from danger, and these reflex activities in time come to be the basis of intuitive perceptions, the founda- tions of intelligence which themselves become the cognitions of the final conscious individual life. The instinctive or the vegetative life is the basis of the intuitive or the intellectual life ; the one passes into the other constituting respectively the conscious or the subconscious realm of being. As says Dar- win,^ ^^ The instinctive actions may lose their fixed and untaught character, and be replaced by others performed by the aid of the free will. On the other hand, some intelligent actions, after being performed during several generations, become con- verted into instincts and are inherited, as when birds on oceanic islands learn to avoid man. These actions may then be said to have degraded in char- acter, for they are no longer performed through reason or from experience."

These rudimentary instincts constitute that sub- reahn of human beings known now as the sublim- inal or subjective self. In so much as all living forms have evolved from one primal unit of pro- toplasmic life, as now the biologists inform us, and have come to present intelligence and the ethical sense through the myriad modifications of the never

1 ** Desoent of Man/' p. 60.

294 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

dying plasm passing from one fonn of life to an- other through all time ; no other conclusion can be drawn but that all the higher powers and qualities of the human soul which at present are extant came to man through the inheritance of the underkingdcmis. Man's soul, whatever it may be, is, therefore, noth- ing different, save in degree of development, from the souls of birds and beasts, lizards and lions.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE NATURE AND GENERATION OP

INSTINCT

But before 'we leave this subject we must exam- ine it a little more fundamentally. Doubtless many of my readers have been asking, '^ But what is Instinct? If the moral and intellectual funo- tions have evolved from the vegetative or instinc- tive, which lie at the basis of all organic life, whence has come this basic faculty or primal impulse t "

This is the last question of both biology and psy- chology, and only recently have these sciences been able to deliver an intelligent answer.

The remarkable fact which we shall now attempt to present is that the mental and moral qualities seem to be absolutely modified or controlled, if not generated, by mechanical environment and chemical affinities. Instinct, it would seem, is now made to appear as the muscular reflex of heat, light, chem- ical action, etc, and even life itself to be a product of such conditions. Life is but the expression of the aggregation of microscopic cells, whose chemical interactions and associations, which are the results of external stimuli^ become the cause of the in- finite variety of moral and mental capacities mani- fested in organic beings. The cellular discovery in biology has revolutionized our entire apprehen- sion and understanding of life.

In HaeckePs " Riddle of the Universe *' (Chap.

296

296 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOBTALITT

yil.)y he flhowB how all peculiar qualities of the human soul are directly associated with, and per- haps dependent upon, the cellular modifications of the body. ^^ Even at the lowest stage/' he says, ^^ of organic life, we find in all the protists those elementary feelings of like and dislike • • • in the striving after heat and light, darkness and cold, and in their different relations to positive and nega* tive electricity. • • • Yet, a connecting chain of all conceivable gradations unites the most primi- tive elements of feeling in the psydoplasm of the unicellular protist with the highest forms of passion that rule in the ganglionic cells of the cortex of the human brain."

In short, the microscope has revealed to the hu- man mind the startling fact that all organic life, in its multifarious phases, has come from one single dot of life-substance, or protoplasm; and that all the wonders of civilization as well as the primitive playfulness of childhood or the fascinating instincts of animal life, are the outcome of the self -multipli- cation, or fission^ of the first dot or cell of life, which constitutes the one identical unit of all forms of organic expression.

Just as great social and civic organizations re- sult from the association of millions of human beings in certain territories, constituting govern- ments and nations, so '^ as soon as the egg-cell is fertilized, it multiplies by division and forms a community, or colony of many social cells . • ."

As, then, all life forms and organizations come from a single eggK^U which by self-multiplication.

THE NATURE OP INSTINCT 297

differentiation and specialization, produoee the vari- ous modifications that constitute the tissues and organs of a living being; naturally, the laws that pertain to life and activities of the single cell ap- ply to the collective life of the organized body.

Are we then justified in assuming that there ex- ists in the primal cell any of the qualities that we are in the habit of attributing to the living soul of man ? Can we show that germinally those mar- vellous attributes of the emotions, the intellect and the will, which so long we have supposed to be the especial endowment of humankind are not only also resident in inferior forms of organic beings, but actually in the unicellular form that constitutes the lowest expression of protoplasmic existence}

The first exhibition of life is growth. So soon as the first cell begins to divide by fission it shows that it is growing. Just as a crystal gathers to its nucleated centre the dissolved units of the solu- tion and adds to itself the substance of the fluid from without, that is by accretion; the cell also absorbs the external fluid and assimilates within, or by intussusception. Here we note that, what seems to be a psychic quality or at least a condition without which none of the psychic powers would develop in organic bodies, is germinally akin with the similar activity of inorganic bodies, differing only in method, but not in nature. " Each indi- vidual or trophic growth is only the simple or di- rect growth common to crystal and to simple or- ganic individuals of the first order." (Haeckel.)

The second important evidence of life is that of

298 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

multiplication by cellular unions. First the one cell divides into numerous cells, which by special- ization become male and female, which in turn unite and propagate from the parental or incubated celL This marvellous union of the two sexual cells has ever constituted the supposed mystery of life and fills the world with wonder and awe. In this union of the parent cells and the consequent con- ception and propagation of the offspring cell-life culminating anon in the full formed organic and functioned body, is to be found the beginnings of all the mental and moral, or the psychic, life of the individual If then in the completion of the multiple cell-body, known as an organic body, whether as a human or an animal being, there are especial psychic faculties and forces, these naturally are but the result of the union of the mentalities or psychic powers that inhered in the combining cells. The one mind of the ani- mal becomes but the unionized mind of the infinite cell-minds of the body. '' The production of mi- nute aggregates of physiological units, being the first step; and the passage of such minute aggregates into consolidated and more complex forms, being the second step ; it must naturally happen that all higher organic types, subsequently arising by fur- ther integrations and differentiations, will, every- where bear the impress of this earliest phase of evolution." *

Along this line of thought modem biology ex«

1 Spencer's Biology, Vol. II, p. 12.

THE NATUEE OF INSTINCT 299

perimented till Max Verwom produced his special work on '^ Psjcho-psysiological Studies of Protists/' wherein he showed according to Haeckel that ^^ the psychic processes are unconscious in all protists, and that the phenomena of sensation and move- ment coincide with the molecular vital processes in their protoplasm, and that their ultimate causes are to be sought in the properties of the i»:otoplasmic molecules.'^

The psychic phenomena of the protists, therefore, he informs us, form a bridge that connects the chemical processes of the inorganic world with the psychic life of the highest animals. In short, all mental activities are identical, whether in the low- est germinal phase of exertion, either in the chem- ical, mineral or the protozoic forms of life; and even when exhibited in the magnificence and mag- nitude of the human soul, they are not in origin or quality different from what they were in the lowly forms from which they ascended.

We need not then hesitate to speak of the soul of the mineral and the plant and animal, as well as the soul of man. Nor need we imagine that the term soul is to be used with reference to all other kingdoms save that of the human kingdom in an accommodating or gratuitous sense. Whatever be the soul of man, as exhibited in mental and moral powers, it is in nature and kind absolutely identi- cal with what we may term the souls of the inferior planetary kingdoms. So true does this seem to be that recent accomplishments of the chemical labora-

800 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

torj with reference to the origin of life and the cultiration of certain psychic qualities by chomcal mutations have astounded the entire world.

The primitive psychic quality of " instinct,*' to which we have already referred, according to these experiments are not at all mysterious, but merely chemical reactions, so to speak* Dr. Loeb has shown that there is no more and no less intelligence in the action of a bird drawn by a glare of light than of a plant turning towards the sun. We had supposed it was the evidence of intelligence in the bird and of chemical attraction in the plant. But Loeb proves that it is the latter in either case. We were wont to think that when a caterpillar climbs to the end of the branch where perchance he may pounce upon some insect as his prey; or when a fly refuses to lay its eggs on the fat of the beef but prefers the meat on which its larvffi might feed; and a thousand other similar exhibitions of appar- ent animal intelligence; we were then witnessing the manifestation of a divine providence in the spe- cial preservation of the species. Yet Loeb most prosaically proves that there is nothing but such germinal intelligence as may exist in chemical af- finity revealed in any of these psychic wonders.

One of the most curious acts among the primitive ' life-forms, and which apparently exhibits much in- telligence, is the performance of the star-fish, which instantly rights itself if you turn it over in the water. Yet Loeb proved that this, too, was but a reflex action resulting from the necessity of the arms of the fish to cling to something solid; for

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 801

when he tied a string to it and suspended it in water, the agile star-fish performed a constant cir- cular act that would awaken envy in the most capa- ble trapeee twirler.

But when Loeb audaciously ventured in the pro- hibited domain of the mystery of life, and dared to enter behind the shadow of the shekinah to read its story, he found that even this, too, was appar- ently the result of chemical action, and could be generated by a proper solution. By causing the unfertilized ^gg of the female to grow without con- junction with the male sperm, he suddenly turned upside down all the theories so long caressed by the mystical scientists of the past

Without trying the patience of the reader with more detail we wish merely to call his attention to a summary of what we have thus far attempted to show in this second division of the book. From time immemorial human thought has been confused by an opposing interpretation of Nature by two diverse schools of philosophers. The one school among the ancient Greeks was called Idealistic, and led by Socrates and Plato ; and the other, Sensation- alistic^ predominated by Aristotle, Anaximenes, Democritus and Leucippus. Occasionally a glimpse of the modem unitary conception of Nature de- ducted from her phenomena by modem scientists came to ancient farsighted individuals, but it re- mained for the modem laboratoiy with its magical tubes and crucibles, and electrical apparatus, to dis- solve apparently inert matter into its final state, and reveal it as nothing more than the denser phases of

802 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

ethereal energy. From this startling discovery a new interpretation of mind, intelligence, oonscioiu- ness, soul — in short, a new psychology — was de- manded, which has now reached the stage of read- ing matter in terms of mind and mind in terms of matter.

Potentially or latently all mind and soul and in- telligence which exist in the most exalted forms of organic life likewise exist in the crudest or most primary states of matter. Mind is material and body spiritual, according to the point of view from which we contemplate them. The soul not only has a material basis, but is essentially and necessarily substantial, as it is a form of evolution transpiring in the due process of Nature. All forms of organic life sprang directly from primary protoplasm, which itself is but another form of matter, with new chemical composition and new psychic capacities, resulting from an alteration of the arrangement of the molecules of matter from which the form of life was first derived. Matter actually feels, thinks and is conscious, of course in a very low d^ree. Therefore every mineral and plant, yea, each atom and cell, may be justly regarded as possessing in its nature what in the nature of man we have been wont to call a soul. Nowhere in the universe is there a space so minute as not to be occupied by material substance; and, likewise, nowhere in the infinite is there an infinitesimal point of space or an instant of time in which there does not inhere the principle of life. Both matter and life being infinite, and two infinities being incapable of exist-

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 808

ing at the same tune and place in mutual oontra- diction, matter must be a form of life and life a form of matter.

The deduction of these philosophical certainties from scientific data enables us to reconstruct the thought of the ages on a rational and consistent basis and establish the unity of Nature and the unif ormily of her laws and methods.

CHAPTER XXVII ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN SOUL

If the conclusions thus briefly summarized are true and indisputable deductions from scientific data, then two results follow in the treatment of our subject: it calls first for a di£Ferent definition of the '' soul " to what has heretofore been given ; and second, a discussion of the problem of the pos- sibility of a soul so defined to Uve after the death of the body. To these two propositions we shall now address ourselves.

It must now be evident that any definition of the ^^ soul " which disregards its physical basis, or attempts to analyze it as an entity separate or solv- able from the body, will be inadmissible as a sci* entifio proposition. Just as visible, opaque matter is but the condensation of invisible, impalpable ether into lower frequencies of electrical energy, so what we call the visible body is but the manifesta- tion in opaque form of that permeating energy which operating through the functional organs and tissues of the body we may call the soul. In this sense it is not in essence or ultimate substance any- thing different to that of the material body; but may be regarded as, indeed, the same substance, only in a more rarefied and refined state of existence.

And, too, just as there are in the material world infinite gradations of matter from the coarsest to the most refined — from visible adamant to invisi-

804

ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN SOUL 806

ble atmosphere — from palpable color to ultra and inviBible hues — from audible vibrations of a com- paratively low density to inaudible vibrations whose frequency is so high they cannot affect the unsus- ceptible organs of the body — so there are grada- tions of material substance which constitute the organism of living bodies from the coarse outer cuticle and hirsute coverings to the muscles^ the tissues, the nerve-sheaths, the marrow, the grey nerve-matter, the individual cells, the nucleoli, and protoplasm, ultimating in the impalpable psychical energy that pervades and operates its chemical con- stituency. As in the entire universe matter and mind, or substance and spirit, merge in one another, passing back and forth from one state to the other, so in the living being, what we call the material form, and what we call the soul, are but varying manifestations of one and the same force, which itself is but the temporary, incorporated presence of the infinite force that pervades the universe.

When we use the terms substance or matter, mind or spirit, in this work we define them as the universal mould of Nature, and the pervading force or energy which manifests itself in the material form, respectively.

As we do not consider the soul somewhat sep- arate or removable from the body, but ever merged and involved in it ; so to us '^ spirit " does not con- note a distinctive natural soul, or spiritual energy, which moves above and is superior to the substan- tial imiverse. The world and the soul of it are but differentiated manifestations of the one principle

206 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

or energy, now visible, now invisible; now substan- tial, now spiritual

If, indeed, we were still to adhere to the ancient conceptions of the embodied existence of the soul SB a distinctive being, our imagination, led by re- cent revelations of biological science, would make plausible a theory that would reduce the conjec- tures of former scientists and theologians to pueril- ity. For while some, as we have said, imagined that the seat of the soul was to be found in various of the functional organs of the body, or in the grey matter of the brain, not until modem mi- <*roscopy revealed to us the marvellous mechanism of the biological cell was the human mind ac- quainted with a psycho-physical centre, which might with much reasonableness be regarded as the true habitation of the spiritual essence. For the cell has been divided and redivided and again divided under the microscope till the old idea that it was a primal protoplasmic unit of the physical organism, a simple dot of bioplasm, has been totally exploded. The protoplasmic unit is now found to be a com- plete piece of marvellous machinery, that reveals to the amazed eye of the student such workings as to paralyze the imagination.

In the inmost centre of the infinitesimal cell of life there is a minute piece of machinery, called the centrosome, whose activity consists in splitting up the nucleal substance in such a way that a dual division takes place, representing the male and the female forces, which part on either side of the nucleus of the cell and radiate between each other

ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN SOUL 807

like the opposite poles of a magnet. This is known as the dynamic centre of the cell. It may be it is here that the psychic energy has its focal centre and from that infiniteaimal piece of machineiy sets in motion all the radiating energy of its nature.

The entire chemical process of the cell activity is for the liberating of the enclosed dynamic energy. ^ The cell body is a machine for the carrying on of destructive chemical changes^ and liberating from the compounds thus broken to pieces their enclosed energy, which is at once converted into motion or heat or some other form of active energy. This chemical. destruction is, however, only possible after the chemical compounds have become a part of the cell. The cell, therefore, possesses a nucleus which has the power of enabling it to assimilate food. • • • The nucleus further contains a marvellous material — chromatin — which in some way exer- cises a controlling influence in its life and is handed down from one generation to another by continu- ous descent. Lastly, the cell has the centrosome, which brings about cell division in such a manner that this chromatin material is divided equally among the subsequent descendants, and thus insures that the daughter cells shall all be equivalent to each other and to the mother cell." ^

Where such a marvellous activity exists as thus described, and that in so microscopical a dot of life- substance as that of the inmost centre of the in- finitesimal cell, one might indeed, were the old theological conceptions still in vogue, believe that

1 " The Story of the Living Machine," H. W. Ckmn, p. 126.

808 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITY

Qod had there faond the mysterioiis place to regia- ter His secret presence and record the marvels of His power. But modem science will not allow for such a plaj of the imagination. While indeed this central place of the cellular mechanism, this mys- terious meeting place of substance and spirit, this nuptial union of mind and matter, affords ample room for the play of the imagination ; biology per- mits us to reach no other conclusion than Ihat it proves that what we call organic life is but the product of the activities of the mechanical device known as the biologic celL '^ Life, at least the life of the cell, is not the property of a chemical comr pound, protoplasm, but it is the result of the activi- ties of the machine.^' ^

Were we seriously to ask for the real centre of the soul, the actual physical residence of the illusive spirit, one would desire no more mysterioua and secluded spot, which because of its minute or- ganism escaped the eye of the microscope for cenr turies, than the cell's centre of centres, where the energy is released that reveals itself in the specific and ever marvellous activities of a living organism. But the microscope with all its startling possibili- ties is not yet certain that it has reached the last analysis of the cell, and should we hastily conclude that we had found the soul's residence in its pres- ent elusive centre, we might be forced to pursue it further and find anon a yet more secret and se- cluded region, where through all the milleniums of history it has concealed itself. '^The living or-

1 ** liv. MadL,* Cona, p. 114.

ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN SOUL 809

ganism is a macliine^ or, it is better to saj, it is a series of machines one within another. As a whole it is a machine, and its parts are separate machines. Each part is still further made np of still smaller machines nntil we reach the realm of the micro- scope. Here again we find the same story. Even the parts formally called units prove to be machines, and when we recognize the complexity of these cells and their marvellous activities, we are ready to believe that we may find still further machines within. And thus vital activity is reduced to a complex of machines, all acting in harmony with each other to produce together the one result — Ufa'* ^

Hence it is apparent that if the cell's centre of centres were the real residence of the soul, the soul would reveal itself to us but as a vortex of ener- gies, or rather as a central vortex of energy, mani- festing itself in multifarious forms of expression as it utilized the complex mechanism of the human body. Therefore, to reach anything approaching a scientific definition of the soul we must utterly for- get all definitions heretofore advanced and attempt to see the soul, so to speak, through the eye of scien- tific discernment As Haeckel says,* " The pre- vailing conception of the psychic activity (the soul), which we contest, considers soul and body to be two distinct entities. These two entities can exist inde- pendently of each other; there is no intrinsic ne- cessity for their union. The organized body is

Story of the Living Machine,'* Conn, p. 130. 2 '< Riddle of the UniTerse/' p. S9.

810 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

mortal, material nature, chemically composed of living protoplasm and its compounds. The soul, on the other hand, is an immortal, immaterial heing, a spiritual agent, whose mysterious activity is en- tirely inoompr^ensible to us. This trivial con- ception is as such, spiritualistic, and its contradic- tory is, in a certain sense, materialistic It is at the same time supernatural and transcendental, since it asserts the existence of forces which can ex- ist and operate without a material basis, it rests on the assumption that outside of and beyond Nature there is a 'spiritual' and unmaterial world, of which we have no experience, and of which we can learn nothing by natural means."

Haeckel puts the case none too strongly, for he states the precise ground of conflict between the old, theologico-scientific conception of the soul and the natural and uncolored scientific interpretation of modem students. I purposely cite what are pop- ularly regarded as materialistic writers, because I wish to put that side of the case before the reader as forcibly and accurately as possible, in order that when I come to set forth the new definition and interpretation of the soul, which I believe is justi- fied by biological science, and the possibilities of its future life in the light of the most exacting in- terpretation of Nature, I shall have left no hiatus in the argument that may mar its force and conclusive- ness.

To show that Haeckel has not exaggerated the pseudo-scientific contention of the traditional the- ological attitude, I quote from a once most popular

ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN SOUL 811

book, and which for several decades was regarded as a divinely sent champion of orthodox views. '^ The passage from the natural to the spiritual world/' says Drummond,^ ^^is hermetically sealed on the natural side. The door from the inorgania to the organic is shut ; no mineral can open it ; ao the door from the natural to the spiritual is shut; and no man can open it. This world of the na1>- ural man is staked off by barriers from the spiritual world which have never yet been crossed from within. No organic change, no modification of en- vironment, no mental energy, no moral efiFort, no evolution of character, no progress of civilization. can endow any single human soul with the attributa of Spiritual Life " (p. 64).

If this contention were true, then there would be no science of the universe and man must needs despair of ever solving the riddle of existence. If this impassable gulf, this unconquerable barrier be- tween the natural or physical and the spiritual is really a fact in Nature, then she invites us to the study of her inmost secrets merely to mock and tantalize, for she never means to permit us to grasp- the secret from her breast

If there be a God why should He set suck bounds to human knowledge, such torturing limi- tations to human aspiration ? Shall we not rather believe that Nature is an open book to those wha find the key to her hieroglyphics? Does not sci- ence^ indeed, by its constant progress in invading^ her profoundest seclusions, and in coming forth

1 " Natural Law in the Spiritaal World."

812 MODERN LIGHT ON DOfOETALITY

with startling revelations of her long-withheld crets and unsolved mjsteriesy prove that God has set no bounds to human knowledge ; and that Na- ture herself refuses to abdicate in favor of time honored Ignorance?

But believing as I do that there is no break in the processes of Nature, that she leaves no hiatus to be filled by the imagination of human interpre- terSy but sets dearly before us all the keys of her Mystery if we but choose to learn, I venture to at- tempt an interpretation of the soul and its present and possible future life, which I believe is wholly consonant with the data and deductions of a scienr tific understanding of the universe as far as yet attained.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE FUNDAMENTAL THESIS OF THE

NEW PSYCHOLOGY

The problem which confTonts us is this: Is the soul a prenatal entity which enters into some hu- man or inferior animal organism already perfectly organized and difFerentiated ; or is what we call the soul but the organized expression, through cer- tain highly developed physiological avenues, of that uniyersal energy which everywhere exists as imper- sonal and semi-intelligent, and which in man be- comes self-conscious and supremely intelligent! The former definition is that of the dualistic inter- preters of Nature, who hope to explain all her phe- nomena by the authority of certain preconceived metaphysical postulates. The latter is the descrip- tion of an analytic effort to understand Nature as a unity, throughout whose infinite processes but one law and one method prevail* The attitude we assume in this discussion of the soul's existence and character is the latter, and through that scien- tific attitude we shall set forth certain conclusions concerning its possible future which we believe will not contradict the fundamentals of the latest biolog- ical and physiological discoveries.

Because the universal Substance or Energy (which must be hypothetically admitted by both monist and dualist, whether as Supreme Being or Infinite Force) reveals itself in human conscious-

313

814 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

ness and intelligence, in such a high degree of p^- f ection, it has seemed conclusive for centuries to all thinking mindsy that before it entered the human frame it must already have been a perfectly formed and Belf-KX>n8ciou8 being. The problem that has ever confronted the thinker is, " Which preceded, the Mechanism or the Spirit t '' as the metaphysi- cian would put it ; or, ^^ The Mechanism or the or- ganised Energy," as the physicist would word iL On the surface, the argument for a soul existing as a perfect and wholly distinct being within the human organism, when judged by merely apparent processes, seems quite convincing. But when that same argument is subjected to the data which the latest discoveries in iJie Science of Life and the evolution of the nervous system and the brain of living bodies have revealed, it falls aside flat and worthless.

The first fact which we are to observe is that all the marvellously organized structure of the tissues of the living body, though at present so infinitely diversified and specialized, originated at one time in a unitary and undifferentiated form of matter known to biologists as ^' plasm." This germ-sub- stance, the real ^^ physical basis of life," is abso- lutely homogeneous, structureless, viscous, trans- parent, yet slowly through millions of centuries has woven the mysterious threads of life that now re- veal its presence in cell, tissue, nerve, vital organs and the crowning brain.

Whatever theory we may advocate, none but is amazed at the marvel, we had almost said miracle.

THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 315

in Nature that weaves from this irritable, snbtly- Bolid, and peeudo-flnid, unspecialized substance, the delicately veined leaf with its inlSnite forms, the vari-hued flower and its myriad species, the crawl- ing or gliding or flying first infinitesimal forms of life in earth or sea or air, culminating, only after sons of labor in Nature's incomparable laboratory, in the majestic organism of the human being, which is in itself the composite resurrection and reunion of all the forms and phases of life that had been gradually woven in the loom of the endless cen- turies.

What wonder men exclaimed, '^ Do you mean to say that inert matter can evolve such marvels; would you so stultify yourself as to advocate that where an intelligent soul is so manifest as in this unparalleled form of life we call a human being, it is nothing more than the expression of the cor- relations of cells of carbon, oxygen and hydrog^ which exist in the viewless winds as well, and yet there have neither tongue nor eye, nor thought or mindl'^

Once Joseph Cook, a famous though somewhat bombastic orator, referring to this problem, and with much eloquence employing the fable of Ariadne and Theseus, exclaimed: ^^We stand before structureless bioplasm, and see it weaving organ- isms ; and we are to adhere, in spite of all theories, to the Ariadne dew, that every cause is to be in- terpreted by its effects, and that oU changes must have an adequate cause 1*' Then reviewing with keen analytical ability all the then recent discov-

816 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

eries in biology he insisted that because of the mar- yellous oo-ordinating structure of living organisms, -which apparently manifested intelligent design in their correlation, the only efficient cause capable of producing such an effect was a differentiated spir- itual presence, which men have ever called the hu- man soul. In the same tenor the eminent pro- fessor, John W. Draper, author of several epochal books, was impelled to ezdaim, when he was pre- senting in his work on physiology the startling ap- position of the automatic, or sympathetic, nerves and the " influential ^ or cortical nerves : " If the optical apparatus be inert, and without value save under the influence of light; if the auditory ap- paratus yields no result, save under the impression of sound — since there is between these structures and the elementary structure of the cerebrum a perfect analogy, we are entitled to come to the same conclusion in this instance as in those, and, assertr ing the absolute inertness of the cerebral structure itself, to impute the phenomena it displays to an agent as perfectly external to the body and as in- dependent of it, as are light and sound, and that agent is the soul." ^

Had it not been for the wider grasp of the sci- ence of evolution which has been attained in the last quarter century these assertions made with such positiveness would seem to be unanswerable. But all sincere students are forced to admit that the most recently discovered data in the biological sci- ences, the deeper knowledge of the nature and

1 Draper's " Physiology,** p. 286.

THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 817

origin of the cell and the primal protoplasm, from which all the forms of life have developed, force a conclusion diametrically opposed to the eloquent passages jnst quoted.

That there is and must be an efficient cause in Nature to produce any effect none can deny; that the cause must be equivalent to and satisfy all the rekjuisites of the effect produced must also be ad- mitted. The question merely is, What is that Cause i Have we yet discovered itt Does it satisfy the problem involved to assert that an external agent known as the indefinable, unknowable, incompre- hensible and illusive Soul is the one and only effi- cient Cause? Can one unknown quantity, X, be discovered by another unknown quantity, X ! The one ultimate physical Cause in Nature is by all ad- mitted to be Motion. The Cause of Motion is un- known. It is the X of Nature. Can we then find the cause of the unknown cause, Motion or X, by assuming another unknown Cause, Ood or X t All theologians admit that ultimately God is indefina- ble and unknowable. All metaphysicians admit that Soul, as an ultimate entity, is indefinable and unknowable, save in its effects or manifestations.

What is the value, then, of assuming an unknown Cause to explain an unknown Cause. Why say the Soul is the original agent of the activities of the bodily functions of living beings, or is the formative cause of the organs that constitute it; when we are still forced to ask an explanation of the Soul, and compelled to account for its origm and nature ? The last is the despair of both meta-

818 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

physics and psjchologj, divorced from biology and physiology ; just as it is the despair of physics, mechanics, ontology and cosmology to account for the origin and nature of Motion or Eneigy. Therefore as no cause can be rationally assumed, other than what may be logically deduced from dis- coverable scientific data, why should we resort to aught else for a satisfactory solution of the universe and the soul of men than the knowledge of man's physical and psychic origin and development, which the researches of the human mind have revealed? Let us see^ then, what these revelations are.

We shall quote from an authority all must admit is supreme in the field of histology and biology, al- though many think dimmed by its dogmatic, so- called, materialistic attitude. Ernst Haeckel in his famous and most popular book ^ says : ^' The theory of descent, combined with anthropological research, has convinced us of the descent of our human organism from a long series of animal an- cestors by a slow and gradual transformation occu- pying many millions of years. Since then we can- not dissever man's psychic life from the rest of his vital functions — we are rather forced to the con- viction of the natural evolution of our whole body and mind — it becomes one of the main tasks of modem monistic psychology to trace the stages of the historical development of the soul of man from the soul of brute." Of course when using the term ^' soul," Haeckel is employing it in the scientifio and not the theological sense. By soul he does not

1 ** The Biddle of the UniTerse,*' p. 148.

THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 819

mean an external spiritual personality or beings but an energy which through the avenue of the nerves and brain manifests itself in mental or logical forms of expression. What we call life begins organically in a senseless, unintelligent, unconscious and un- responsive state. If we had found, as was believed by ancients, that the soul is directly inserted into the human body at the moment of conception, or that it came into expression during some period of gestation, or, even, that it was found only par- tially expressed at the moment of birth, we would be forced to the conclusion that the soul seems to be a separable and distinct being, holding only a temporary residence in the body. But the first great discovery now universally admitted is that organic life reveals no such psychic capacity.

Although for thousands of years students have been investigating the laws of embryology there was nothing scientifically known of the subject till 1884, when Kussmaul published his revolutionary work on " The Souls of Newborn Children '' (" Unter- suchungen uber das Seelenleben des neugeborenen Mens€hen**)f and just two years before W. Preyer brought out his '^Mind of the Child,'' in which work it was shown *^ that the newborn infant not only has no reason or consciousness, but is also deaf and only gradually develops its sense and thoughtr centres. It is only by gradual contact with the outer world that these functions successively appear, such as speech, laughing, etc. ; later still comes the power of association, the forming concepts of words, etc." (Vide Haeckel's ** Wonders of Life.")

S82 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMOBTALITT

poosible wiU-o'-th'-wisp, which will eyer allure but never be grasped. He finally relieves himself of all embarrassment by declaring that after all, true psychology, as distinguished from metaphysics and philosophy, has nothing whatever to do with any hypothetical body, such as the soul must be oonceded to be, and can concern itself alone with palpable phenomena and analyzable processes. ** The hare PHjeNOHXNOK [the capitalized words are his], the nooEDiATSLT XNowir thing which on the mental side is in apposition with the entire brain process is the state of consciousness and not the soul itself/* Thus after much apology and senti- mental philandering, he finally comes out fiat- footed with the admission that ^^ psychology is poaitivistic and non-metaphysical,'' and that ^^ term for term, the simplest psycho-physic formula is that the succession of states of consciousness co- incide with the succession of total brain-processes and that this must be the last word of psychology that contents itself with verifiable laws and aeeks only to be clear and avoid unsafe hypoth- eses."

Thus we see that the strongest and most popular defender of the old dualistic theory among modem philosophers frankly surrenders and evacuates the stronghold of orthodox spiritualism, turning his face toward the camp of the more cautious and sci- entifically positive seekers after truth.

Biology, physics and synthetic chemistry have evidently so totally revolutionized all the old ideas about the soul and its possibilities that psychology,

THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY 828

no less than a true metaphysics^ must oourt their acquaintance as friends and co-laborers if it hopes to present an honest thesis of life and the soul| and not to suffer itself to be wholly annihilated. Be- fore then we look further into the nature of the soul, let us examine somewhat more in detail what these sciences haye taught us concerning the nature of living matter and the origin of life.

CHAPTEB XXIX

PSYCHOQENT OR SOUL GENERATION

Huxley, in his famous article on '^ Biology " in the Encydopsedia Britannica, presents the follow- ing conclusions as to the science of life and the trend of the latest analysis of organic evolution:

(1) Every complex form of life is reducible to a morphological unit, from which it has been un- folded,

(2) This morphological unit constitutes the pri- mary and fundamental form of life. It contains both the morphological and the psychic possibilities of the especial form of life which it prophesies.

(3) That morphological unit is merely an indi- vidual mass of protoplasm, in which no further structure is discernible. This is the plasm, as Haeckel terms it, which is unsusceptible of analysis as to its ^* morphological organization," and as found in its undeveloped state is the basis of every form of life.

(4) Independent living forms present but little advance on this structure. That is, the entire un- folding of the complex organic form consists of but the infinite multiplication of the original mor- phological unit, or dot of protoplasm, variously de- veloped by adaptation and heredity.

(5) All the higher forms of life are aggregates of such morphological units, variously modified.

(6) In the course of its development every cell

824

SOUL GENERATION 825

proceeds from a condition in which it very closely resembles every other cell, through a series of stages of gradually increasing divergence, nntil it reaches the condition in which it presents the characteristic features of the elements of a special tissue.

(7) The development of the cell is therefore a gradual progress from the general to the special species. In short, the cell evolution follows the plan of universal progress, passing from the like, or homogeneous state to the unlike, or heterogeneous state, according to Spencer's famous definition.

(8) If all living bodies have come into existence by the gradual modification, through a long series of generations, of primordial living matter, then the development of the embryo is but a recapitula- tion of the ancestral history of the species.

I have here tersely tabulated from a master hand the entire formula of the origin and progress of physical life. I propose on this strictly scientific foundation to introduce what might be called a new definition of the soul, a definition strictly, I be- lieve, in accord with the fundamental data and de- ductions of biology, physiology and histology, and then to attempt to show that notwithstanding its absolutely physical origin, basis and nature, it pre- sents the promise of a logical life beyond the grave.

It is true, I shall not pretend to be able to postu- late such a universal after-life for all humankind as is the general desire, resting on this physical foundation; but I have already shown there seems to be neither prophecy nor promise of such an after- life in the history or thought of the human race.

826 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

save in its mythology and primitive stage. What we set out to attempt to show is not what we should prefer might be the condition of the departed ; not whether because we have dreamed it so, that there- fore all who have ever trodden the paths of earth shall assuredly tread the asphodel fields of paradise; but merely what Nature, by her immutable and in- disputable laws determines as the final or post- mortem state of man as the individual, and man- kind as the race. If we shall find that the prom- ise of the after-life, according to the intimation of natural discoveries, is not for all, but for some only who give the promise of spiritual survival of the fittest, as some only in the long warfare of civiliza- tion have maintained their physical survival; we shall not, mayhap, so well delight the traditional desire of the human heart, but we may at once sat^ isfy a natural longing and emphasize a moral prin- ciple that will inspire to higher living and nobler aspiration.

The first proposition, then, to which we must at- tend is the absolute and universal law of Nature that nothing enters into her composition and meth- ods which has not always existed ; that nothing can be added to or taken from the infinite substance or inexhaustible energy, which are the fundamental bases of all phenomena in the animate or inanimate, organic or inorganic world. Whatever force, then, apparently reveals itself, de novo, as a new and un- correlated phase of energy, is not in fact new, or different in its origin and nature, to all other forms of force which have ever prevailed in the

SOUL GENERATION 827

universe* And again, whatever complex or rarefied condition of matter may be discovered in the most developed forms of organic living bodies can neither contain material which is in nature and origin different to the universal substance that is revealed in all the physical world, nor involve a form of energy that is not some differentiable phase of the infinite Energy that pervades all substance.

If then we find a force or power manifested in organic bodies, call it life or intelligence or soul, which is not palpably manifest in inorganic forms of matter, we must, according to the two principles just enunciated, decide that it is not a new force or principle introduced in comparatively recent times in the operations of Nature; but that it is merely a variation or differentiation of the One Energy which had always existed, but at one period of history began to be transmuted into a different form of expression. If again we find material bodies so constituted that they present a higher phase of rarefaction and complexity, causing them to become susceptible to more refined expressions of energy than any theretofore existing, we are not to conclude that new matter, wholly different froni what Nature always evolved, has suddenly ap* peared; but that merely a once coarser form of substance has come iato a rarer and more refined form of expression.

Hence material substances of the highest fre» quency of vibration are no less physical than the lowest ; and the most exalted manifestations of force in forms of sensation, perception, consciousness^

828 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Teason and reflection, are nothing more than ex- pression of the One Energy of the uniyerse revealed through more complex and specialized ayennes of physical unfoldment.

If then we find what we call life in the highest forms of matter it must also exist latently in the lowest forms. If what we call ^^soul'' is found in the most complex and exalted forms of organic life we must conclude that it already existed la- tently in the most primitive or unorganised expres- sions of dynamic activity.

If there is composite and centralised life in the heing of a living body then that same life must exist in each of the myriad cells that constitute it. Likewise if there be mind or soul as an embodiment of conscious expression, then that same soul exists germinally in each individual cell, and the per- sonal soul or mind is but the collective psychic enei^ of the associated cells that make up the en- tire organism. "Every living cell has psychic properties, and the psychic or life of the multicel- lular animals and plants is merely the sum-total of the psychic functions of the cells which build up the structure.** *

Whatever soul expression, then, exists in the complete structure, we must expect to find not only in the multitude of the associated and specialized cells, but even in the primal plasm, " the morpho- logical unit ** of Huxley, from which all forms of life evolve.

The soul, then, that is revealed in the activities

i^'Haeckel's Kiddle of Universe/' p. 162.

SOUL GENERATION 82»

of living organisms, has its origin in the primor- dial, individual cell, or morphological unit, from which all modified forms of life develop. The soul cannot be said to have come instantly into existence, any more than the body was instantly developed. The soul began germinally in concep- tion as the body began: the micro-organism as it lies in the ovary, the conjugated offspring of two opposite cells, contains not only the germinal union of two cell forms, but of two cell-lives, two cell- minds, two cell-soub. As the cell multiplies into in- dividual and differentiated communities of cells, the soul multiplies, divides and increases : a million million of souls existing in the one body as a mil- lion million of micro-organic cell-bodies exist in parallel association.

As all the ceUs finally, by means of a marvellously complicated and correlated series of instruments, combine to form a single and distinct physical body or material personality, so the souls unite, throu^ the employment of the same complex mechanism, in the constituency of a self-conscious spiritual per- sonality, known as the individual soul.

The soul, then, grows gradually with the body and culminates with its completion. And con- versely, as the growth of the body is arrested or aborted (i. e. in proportion to the limitation of the quantity and quality of the cells that constitute the sum-total of the living organism), is the soul like- wise arrested and aborted. Hence, the search for the soul will never succeed if confined to the inves- tigation of any single organ of the body (as among

880 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the older pejchologists) or even if limited to the sum-total of single faculties that seem to be the especial instruments of psychic expression.

In the light of this interpretation the soul may be r^arded as an entity in like manner with the body; if, however, we distinctly understand when we use the term ^* entity " we hare reference to a discernible form of substantial expression, and not to a mere idea of the mind, or concept of the reason. If the soul exists as an entity it can be no mere mental abstraction; it must be something discern- ible, of which we can take cognisance.

Hence I venture the following definition of a soul, which I think will harmonise with the prop- ositions of science already stated :

The soxd of the living organiem is the collective expression of the psychic energy of the individual cells that constitute its physical form, unfolding through infinite stages of development from a single cell-^soul to a multiple soul that constitutes the per- sonality of an individual. Hence the soul exists in and permeates every fibre and tissue, every nerve and cell of the entire physical body. It is indeed coterminous with the body, and becomes a personal soul so long as it retains this coterminous relation.

Having established this much, we hope success- fully, regarding the nature and limitations of the personal souls of living individuals, we must now confront the question, whether the soul, as we have above defined it, after it has become organised into a stable and self-engendering source of energy, may become sufficiently strong to withstand the decay of

SOUL QENEEATION 831

the ooarser forms of matter, as embodied in the perishing cells, and persist in a still more refined and enduring substance which may have the ca- pacity of defying the usual forms of death.

On the solution of this problem depends the an- swer to the necessary corrollary to the definition of the soul above given, namely, that if the soul begins existence co-incidently with the body, and if its or- ganism and energy are coterminous with the phys- ical frame, it must of course pass away into its primal sources and become dissipated as does the body which it actuates. But in order to make our- self clear on the deductions that are to follow, we must first once more make sure that our position with r^ard to the nature and constituency of the physical world is scientifically accurate, and that we very clearly apprehend the scientific distinction between so-called living and not living matter.

CHAPTER XXX

THE PROBLEM OF THE ORIGIN OF

ORGANIC LIFE

In the last chapter we presented Huxley's tabu- lar presentation of the evolution of universal organic life from the primal protoplasmic cell.

But the bit of protoplasm, from which presum- ably all life has descended is a living, howbeit un- nucleated, un-organized living substance.

Wherever life is, there are germinal intelligence and consciousness ; that is, the germinal soul of the prophesied organism.

But does life exist in Nature antecedent to the appearance of the jelly-like substance in which pri- marily it inheres ? Is the chasm between the living and the not living bridged in Nature; or is there still here a hiatus in the unity and uniformity of the universe?

Is it true, that because as Huxley says, ^^ The phenomena which living things present have no parallel in the mineral world," therefore the living world is a wholly different thing than the non-liv- ing world?

Is it true that biology can go only so far as to show that all organic life necessarily and logically comes only from organic life, cell, only from cell, protoplasm only from protoplasm ? Is that the be- ginning? Is that as far as science can go? Are we then to conclude that the earth never engendered

882

ORIGIN OF ORGANIC LIFE 888

life in organic form as it engendered the modified forms of life by the law of the origin and develop- ment of the species t

Here is the crux; and until we have satisfied ourselves with an answer to these questions we can- not well proceed with our analysis of the nature and possibilities of the soul.

Logically it must appeal to every mind that where throughout the infinite processes of the universe we everywhere find such absolute and unbroken evolu- tion, from the simplest to the most complex forms of matter, it could scarcely be possible that a sud- den hiatus should be found in the gigantic scheme, and a wholly new element and method be introduced at only one period of the universal drama. It is now admitted by all naturalists that given the first bit of life, all the logical steps of the evolution of organic life are discoverable in the geologic history of the earth.

As says Huxley in his Britannica article on "Biology," referring to this point: "Postulat-. ing the existence of living matter endowed with the power of hereditary transmission, and with that tendency to vary which is found in all such matter . • • the interaction between living* matter and surrounding conditions, which results in survival of the fittest, is sufficient to account for the gradual evolution of plants and animals from their simplest to their most complicated forms."

Can it be, then, that the universe presents a cos- mological scheme, whose evolutional forms of de- velopment can be discerned by the philosophical in-.

884 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOKTALITY

vestigator from its primal^ undifFerentiated, so- called chaotic state to its infinitely varied trans- formationsy until a distinctive epochs namely the period of introduction of protoplasmic life; and again after the abrupt introduction of this basic living substance, presents ample proof of every stage of the development of all forms of animal and plant life ; and yet at only one moment in the vast scheme of absolute uniformity displays a method that is not only contrary to its general course^ but contradic- tory and inconsistent t

Manifestly a logical interpretation of Nature makes this scheme an absurdity. Where such ra- tional and uniform order prevails, it is impossible to believe that Nature becomes suddenly inconsist^ ent with herself and belies the logical continui^ of her sublime drama with a disconcerting denoue- ment We shall certainly not believe this until by absolute and incontrovertible proof we are com- pelled to. But thanks to recent science the riddle is being rapidly solved.

Haeckel reminds us that Baruch Spinoza, that old persecuted philosopher of Amsterdam, foresaw the way to read this riddle hundreds of years be- fore modem discoveries proved his prophecy. Spinoza's ^^ universal substance, the ^ divine nature of the world/ shows two different aspects of its being, or two fundamental attributes — matter (infinitely extended substance), and spirit (the all-embracing energy of thought)." At this point I must digress a moment to call attention to Haeckel's remarkable comment on the passage from

OBIQIN OF OBGANIC LIFE 836

Spinoza's writings just quoted. He says ^ ^^ All changes which have since come over the idea of substance are reduced, on logical analysis, to the supreme thought of Spinoza's ; with Ooethe I take it to be the loftiest, profoimdest and truest thought of all ages/* After that exclamation I fail to see how Haeckel can hereafter be regarded as a mere materialist. For, if Spinoza's interpretation is ac- cepted as a scientific deduction it analyses the world as a unit, essentially identical, but dual in its dy- namic manifestations.

A manifestation, let us ranember, is not self-ex- isting; it is a phenom^ion, an appearance; it pos- tulates something else. The shadow is not a sub- stance ; it is but a reflection of the substance under certain conditions.

Therefore to assume that because the universe manifests itself dually, in material phenomena and in spiritual enei^ or thoug^it, it is consequently dual in nature^ is equivalent to saying that the shadow and substance are two separable existences, each primary and independent of the other. The substance is alone^ as related to the shadow, essen- tial and absolute. The shadow (or manifestation) is merely an incidental reflex of the ultimate sub- stance. Therefore according to both Spinoza and Haeckel ^^ substance" is the ultimate reality of Nature. But, confessedly, substance is not to be interpreted only in its manifestation as shadow (material phenomena) or in its energy as thought (mind, spirit, soul). Substance, whatever it may

1 Riddle of Univ., p. 216.

886 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

be, the absolute reality, ia the matrix, from whidi thought and phenomena spring. The subatanoe^ dual in manifestation, is single, monistic^ identi- cal, undifferentiable, in its essential nature. There- fore, on the one hand, to define the universe as con- sisting only of phenomena, that is mechanical structure and molecular activity (which is ultra materialism), and on the other hand, to regard it as made up wholly and only of thought or mental activity devoid of a physical substratum (which is abstract idealism or pure spiritualism), is mani* festly erroneous and unscientific

This much, however, we may safely say we know from the evidence of the Spinozean *^ divine snb-^ stance," that it is manifested to us both as matter ■and mind, that is, as phenomena and aa thought. The difference depends wholly on our point of view« Hence, phenomena, that is matter as we know it„ springing from the same source as thought, must in essence^ or ultimate nature, be identical with thought Substance covid not manifest itself in^ two essential opposUes. For if it did it would argue that substance is essentially self -contradictory, namely, consisting of two opposites which mutually annihilate each other. Whatever the universe may be it must necessarily be itself; it cannot be one- half itself, and one-half something else. If it is wholly inert matter, it cannot be thought, its op- posite. If it is wholly thought, it cannot also be the opposite of thought, inert matter. Yet the uni- verse reveals itself as both thought and matter, or phenomena and mental energy. If tkese are mani-

ORIGIN or ORGANIC LIFE 887

festatioiis of the ultimate '^ divine substance/' then they can manifest nothing else than the nature of that substance, or ultimate reality. Therefore, aa the substance from which they spring must be one and itself, that which springs from it, namely, thought and phenomena, or mind and matter, can be nothing else, and must be one and the same as the substance, and therefore mutually identical, or one and the same themselves. ^^ Things ' which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other."

The corollary of the above conclusion is that Nature having been demonstrated to be a unit and all its phenomena and energies one in essence, the hypothesis of two opposite phases of existence (namely, material and spiritual, body and soul, organism and mind) is wholly undemonstrable, un- scientific and untrue*

Having, I trust, satisfactorily solved the prob- lem of the universe from the point of view of pure reason, metaphysica and logic, we shaU now find it necessary to turn to experimental science and learn whether her discoveries and deductions accord with our abstract conclusions. The point which we are to ask practical science to decide for us is whether Nature presents a two-fold form of ex- istence, wholly contradistinguished and unrelated, the one discerned as living and the other non-living matter, or matter exercised l^ natural and material forces and matter exercised by supernatural and immaterial forces. We are now approaching an intellectual battle field where the smouldering em- bers of many engagements are still to be seen. In

S38 MODERN LIGHT ON IMM ORTALITT

the minds of man j the battle is still on ; the reenlt ia uncertain, and the camps are still far apart. Sut I believe vre shall be able to discoyer that the conflict is not so intense as it once was and that an armistice is about to be declared. In order to appreciate the situation we must review the modem lustorj of the conflict.

About 40 years ago a startling discovery was siade in biological science. Up to that time the nature of the primordial cell of life was a profound mystery. It was nothing more than an hypothesis. Its physical discovery was an impossibility. But Xh-. Lionel S. Beale, an eminent surgeon and chem- ist, of London, England, had been experimenting and as a result set forth this statement in his dis- tinguished and revolutionaiy work on ^^Proto- plasm '' :

^^ In my lectures in 1861," he says, '^ I had drawn attention to the great distinction between ^ living ' and ^ formed matter ' of the elementary part of the eell, and of all living organisms; and had shown that the ' living matter ' of a cell corresponded to the material of which the amoeba, white corpuscle, etc., were composed. These last I represented as a ruiked mass of living matter and objected to apply to them the term protoplasm, because so many tex- tures which were not living were said to consist of that substance." This was the first biological shot from an English gun that went round the world. Sut whether known to Beale or not, Hugo Mohl, 1846, gave a distinguishing definition to ^'proto-

ORIGIN OF ORGANIC LIFE 839

plasm/' which quite anticipated him ; as Haeckel re- minds us in ^'Wonders of life*" Nevertheless Scale's discovery was not only important in itself, but because of the teleological use he made of it, set the warring camps of naturalists quite fiercely at their throats again. For Beale's final conclusion as to the distinction to be drawn between so-called living and not living matter was that an extra- natural or mysterious force entered into the for- mation of living matter, which did not abeady exist in what he called dead matter ; much as the old chemists thought that ** phlogiston," an imaginary element, entered into inflammable substance to pro- duce a flame.

He says: ''Even in the smallest organisms which exhibit the simplest characters, as well as in every texture of the most complex beings, we can demonstrate two kinds of matter, differing in very important particulars &om one another; or perhaps it would be more correct to say, matter in two dif- ferent states, manifesting different properties and exhibiting difference in appearance, chemical com- position, etc, and physical characters. • • • Nothing that lives is alive in every part Of the matter which constitutes the bodies of man and an- imals in the fully formed condition probably more than four-fifths are in the formed or not living state."

We must remember that when Beale speaks of living and not living matter he k employing arbi- trary words, and using them in a personal sense.

340 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOBTALITT

By this dassification^ as we soon kam, he means merely to distinguish between different states or active conditions of material substance.

He continues, '' Not even the smallest living par- ticle seen under the one-fifth of an inch objective consists of matter in the aame state in every part; for it is composed of (1) living matter; (2) matter formed from this ; (3) pabulum, which it takes up.''

What Beale undertakes to show is that what we may really call living matter, according to a defini- tion which he soon presents, consists not at all of the visible and formed substances of the body, but wholly of an invisible, microscopic, self-acting and self -generating substance, distinguishable in chem- ical composition and capacity from the matured or ** formed " parts of the organism. ** The matter in the first state," he continues, ^^ is alone concerned in development and the production of those mate- rials which ultimately take the form of tissue, secretion, deposit, as the case may be. It alone poesesees the power of growth, and of producing matter itself out of materials differing from it ma- terially in composition, properties and powers/*

It is with this interior, invisible, self -generating substance that Beale especially concerns himself, as he thinks he has here found the secret b^;inning of life. Beale calls this invisible substance ** bio- plasm " as distinguished from ^' protoplasm," which he regards as a later substance produced by the properties of the bioplasm. To him, this bioplasm, the living matter, is something totally different from protoplasm, the formed matter. According

ORIGIN OF OEGANIC LIFE 841

to his construction the greatest portion of the hu- man organism is more dead than alive. That is, the formed or nnassimilating suhetance, constitut- ing the largest portion of the body, is constantly in a state of decay; whereas the unformed^ or cease- lessly active and assimilating part, constitutes only a slight portion. To Beale^ theref ore, the property of life means the capacity of substance to reach out to not-living matter and transmute it into living matter. '^Bioplasm/' he says, '^ always tends to move towards the pabulum it is about to take up and to transform. This tendency to move is one of the essential attributes of living matter.'' Bio- plasm in Beale's interpretation is the substance that has this tendency to move and take up and absorb the pabulum (food)' or not-living matter. The pabulum, or not-living matter, is protoplasm.

Beale's definition of this substance is as follows : ^'The particles of living matter consist of struc- tureless, colorless, transparent, semi-fluid matter. • • • There is a period in the development of every tissue, and every living thing hnovm to us when there are actually no structural peculiarities whatever, when the whole organism consists of transparent, structureless, semi-fluid, living bio- plasm ; when it would not be possible to distinguish the growing, moving matter which was to evolve the oak from that which was the germ of the verte- brate animal. Nor can any difference be discerned between the bioplasm matter of the lowest, simplest, epithelial scale of man's organism, and that from which the nerve cells are to be evolved. Neither

842 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

by studying the bioplasm under the microscope, nor by any kind of physical or chemical investigation known, can we form any notion of the substance which is to be formed by the bioplasm, or what will be the ordinary result of its Uving." ^

1 have quoted thus extensively to show that this revolutionary discovery placed the science of biology absolutely in line with that interpretation of Nature which conceives it as unitary in its essence, its methods, and its achievements. As we have just found that there is no actual distinction to be drawn between mind and matter, in the last analysis, so we learn that all forms of life are in their origin absolutely identical, and their source is simple and indistinguishable.

There has been a reactionary movement among recent biologists to prove that the original substance to which Beale refers, and which Haeckel caUs ^^ plasm" is structural and differentiable. But Haeckel stands stoutly by Mohl's and Beale's orig- inal discovery, and asserts that the structural units which are said to have been discovered in the pri- mary substance are not in the unaffected plasm, and are not ^^ efficient causes of the life process, but products of it. • • • The true protoplasm, or viscous and at first chemically homogeneous sub- stance, cannot in my opinion have any anatomic structure," ■

Huxley in his Britannica article on " Biolpgy," and the article '' Anatomy" in the same encyclo-

1 '' Bioplasm,'' Beale, pcMMi.

2 Wonders of Life, diap. VI.

ORIGIN OF ORGANIC LIFE 34S

pedia, as well as Darwin in his theory of "gem- mules " as set forth in his " Plants and Animala Under Domestication '' and Haeckel^ in his " Evo- lution of Man " ^ all sustain this original discovery of Beale as to the primary and structureless nature of the original material form of life. Having, how- ever, discovered the primary unit of all living mat- ter, how shall its variableness and differentiation ba accounted for ? Does this call for the introduction, of extraordinary and elsewhere undiscoverablo forces, that so far differ from the correlated forcea exhibited everywhere in Nature as to contradict them?

Beale himself asked this question. While he admits that ^' Neither the most careful microscop- ical observation nor the most skillful chemical analysis would enable us to distinguish the living; matter obtained from the body of an ape from that taken from a man, a dog, a fish, or human form of life," yet he exclaims, " Who would, therefore as- sert that all those different forms of living matter are one and the same ? Although there may be no chemical or physical differences, we know that the life history of these several forms is very different^ while the results of their living are sufiicient to prove that they must have been diverse from the very start." Here then is the problem which we must face.

1 Vol. U, p. 46.

CHAPTER XXXI

LINK BETWEEN LIVING AND NOT

LIVING

The fact referred to in the previous chapter, that notwithstanding the indisputably identical origin of all forma of living matter^ yet that they could not have been identical because of the result- ant variations manifest in the final forms evolved, 18 the precise point in biological evolution where the uninformed might surmise the finger of supemat- uralism might be thrust into the problem. For surely, if the forms are chemically and mechan- ically alike in their inmost nature and character, imless there inheres in the individual substance something that becomes the basis of some distinc- tive and differentiated form of life — a property that is wholly unlike what exists in any other — how could the infinite diversities of the organic and living world have come to pass ?

Something has taken place. What is it? Nat- urally the spiritualist will assert that the ever living soul, which has either existed from all eternity ac- cording to theosophic conception, or is new created by the fiat of the Almighty according to orthodox interpretation, has entered mystically into the germ- inal mould of matter which, externally indistin- guishable from all other primary forms of life, is nevertheless destined by this same presiding spirit to

344

THE LIVING AND NOT LIVING 846

become only itself and live its own life. On the contrary, the biological mechanist will declare that merely by the molecular reconstruction which takes place when the living dot of matter comes in con- tact with external physical environment, have such distinctive changes taken place in the structure and development of this specific form of life as to dis- tinguish it utterly from all others.

These positions, however, are not quite so far apart as they seem to be. Whatever else science may have or have not proved with reference to the immortality of the imaginary spirit, this much she has done, she has proved the immortality of pri- mary living matter. For, strange to say, in the midst of an age-long conflict as to the existence and possible after-death continuance of a supposed hu- man and personal soul, there rises (shall we call it a prophetic vision t) the discovery that matter it- self, whether or not the home of a heaven-descended spirit, in its primary vital form has never perished since first it was formed on this planetary sphere. " Knowing nothing of the immortality of the spirit^ Science has put on an immortality of the flesh, and in a remarkable triumph of research has learned to recognize in every living being at once immortal age beside immortal youth. The patiently worked out story of the morphological continuity of the germ plasm is one of the fairy tales of science. . . . This marvellous embryonic substance is eternally young, eternally productive, eternally forming new individuals to grow up and to perish,

846 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

while it remains in the progeny always youthful, always increasing, always the wme.^

If this is true, and science does not deny it to- day, then the question as to the apparently mirac- ulous diversity and variation of the primary form of life into its multiplicity of individualised forms is answered.

For we have seen that along with the physical affections of this primary substance there went what we may call psychical influences: the affec- tions of mental and moral forces which have been registered in the immortal substanca The soul, we have argued is not an already formed and pre- meditated existence which enters full fledged into the mortal frame, but is itself organized, oo-in- stantly with the incipiency of the physical organ- ism, and emerges gradually through the develop- ment of the individual life from the aggregating multitude of cells that finally associate to constitute what we call a living organism. Therefore the vital principle, the soul, the psychic energy, that permeates the organism, and constitutes the indi- viduality and character of the person, is made up of the convergence in one personality of all the ag- gregating psychic influences that have entered into its formation. These influences never perish or are annihilated. They exist as eternal and indestruct- ible forces. They must find some material element in which to register themselves. All mental and psychic influences are and can be registered only in living substance ; that is, in the primary, micro-

iDr. Osier's "Science and Immortality," p. 32.

THE LIVING AND NOT LIVING 847

scopicaly vitalising^ stmctureless, viscous and trans- parent element or substance, which as Beale has in- formed US, although forming so small a portion of the living frame, yet is the only thing alive about it, and is the ultimate and only sensitive plate upon which the racial and individual psychic influences make their impress. This therefore is the ^^ mys- terious " cause of the infinite variations and differ- entiations manifest in the multifarious forms of living bodies. ^^I regard as the chief cause of this differentiation of the plasm the accumulation of hereditary matter — that is to say, of the inter- nal characteristics of the plastids acquired by an- cestors and transmitted to their descendants — with- in the plastids, while their outer portion continued to maintain intercourse with the outer world." ^ The term ^^ plastids " Haeckel uses as equivalent to Beale's term of " Bioplasts."

Thus constantly science succeeds in brushing away the alleged mysteries that seem to gather around the phenomena of life. Beale propounded a question which every teleologist has since declared intimated the existence of a supernatural and dif- f erentiable soul in a human being. But science an- swers by showing that while it can discover no such mysterious soul, it finds a really scientific soul, amenable to interpretation and rational apprehen- sion, and resident in the body as an animating and informing force, because of its gradual evolution through countless ages. It finds, indeed, a phys- ical seat for such a soul, a physical seat, which is

1 Haedcel, *' Wonders of Life," p. 188.

848 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

itself imperishable and indissoluble. ** Thousands upon thousands of generations which have arisen in the course of ages were its products^ but it lives on in the youngest generations with the power of giving origin to millions. The individual organism is transient, but its embryonic substance which pro- duces the mortal tissue, preserves itself, imperish- able, everlasting and constant." ^

Thus far then in the physical analysis of vital phenomena we find no reason for an alteration of the interpretation of the universe which we have made and of the human soul which we are discussing.

Let us hold in mind the picture which has thus far been presented of the actual biological form of life, not the visible, apparent, dying form; but the invisible, primaiy, structureless and undying form, which is itself the generator of the visible form. It consists of a transparent substance, neither fluid nor solid, but viscous, thickish and sticky, spherically formed and floating throughout the entire region of the outer organic body, covering indeed the minutest sections of it For Beale says *^ there is not one portion of a growing tissue, one five-hvndredth of an inch in extent, in whidi living matter cannot be demonstrated ; and in every part of the body are these little masses of living matter, separated from one another by a distance a little more than the thousandik part of an inch.*'

Again consider that each one of these spherical, structureless, transparent, viscous molecules of

1 Noll, quoted bj Osier, ** Sdenoe and Immortaliiy.''

THE LIVING AND NOT LIVING 349

vital matter is the register of infinite psychic in- fluences "which enter into it as its germinal mind and sonl, to be developed anon by the aggregate union of the cell-bodies and cell-souls into one grand body^ itself invisible^ and one grand mind or soul^ also invisible, all to be figured forth into visible presentation through the external, transitory physical frame.

Nor must we forget that into this organization of the invisible vital atoms of a living organism there has entered an apparently new principle or force, whose activities and properties are utterly different to that of any other in Nature. For when we study the vital activities of an organism, whatever may be our theory of their origin, we are ever forced to acknowledge their singular distinc- tiveness; namely — the fact that the force that actuates them is capable of revealing certain mar- vellous properties that are not elsewhere discover- able in the universe.

Thirty years ago Huxley wrote : " The proper^ ties of living matter distinguish it absolutely from all other kinds of things, and the present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link be- tween the living and the not-living.'^ The first half of that paragraph is still indisputable; but thirty years are a long time for scientific research and since his day some scientists think that they have discovered the missing link between the vital and non-vital properties of matter. However, it is a fact that the startling manner in which so- called dead matter is suddenly transmuted into

860 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

living matter, when in oontact with it, for long deceived the scientific mind, and caused many to believe that here at least was a hiatus in Natore's methods and that the teleologist had fonnd an apology for his philosophy. Beale himself so em- phasized this seeming miracle in Natnre that he left the impression on the scientific world he him- self was overcome by the mystery and despaired of its explanation. '^The difference between living or germinal matter/' he says,^ ^'or bioplasm and the pabulum which nourishes it, I believe, is absolute. The pabulum does not shade by im- perceptible degrees into living matter, but the pas- sage from one state into the other is abrupt and sudden, althou^ there may be much living matter mixed up with lifeless matter, or vice versa. The ultimate particles of matter pass from lifeless into living state and from the latter into the dead state suddenly. Matter cannot be said to be half dead and half alive. It is either dead or living, animate or inanimate; and formed matter has ceased to

This was the highest and most satisfactory ex- planation which one of the world's leading biolo- gists could conceive less than a half century ago. It looked to him like an inexplicable mystery. Physicists continued to assert that the marvellous results were all brought about by the alterations of the molecules that constituted the substance of the living matter, which they believed some day would become apparent. Indeed, as to the sudden-

1 ** ProiopUuim/' p. 186.

THE UVINQ AND NOT LIVING 861

ness of the transmutation of non-living into living matter^ whose constituency and chemical properties are so utterly at variance ; have we not all, through the chemistry of nature observed physical demon- strations of the same marvel} When oxygen and hydrogen unite in proper proportions, the mere mechanical juxtaposition of the proportionate elements in itself uloes not satisfy to effect a startling change ; but when the electric spark is shot through the union then instantly, suddenly, '^ in the twinkling of an eye/' the whole scene changes, and instead of mere separable elements we have a substance, water, wholly distinguishable from the elements that united to create it both as to its nature and its chemical properties. "When we rub to- gether sulphur and mercury, two totally different elements, the atoms of the finely divided matter combine and form a third and different chemical body, cinnabar." In fact synthetic chemistry, with its thousands of organic substances created in the experimental laboratory, where wholly divergent and distinguishable elements are united and electri- fied, resulting instantaneously in the formation of substances wholly different in chemical com- position and properties from the elements that engendered them, is proof sufficient that the old teleologists were in error when they imagined any- thing mysterious entered into the formation of vital substance out of non-vital substance.

Haeckel declares, and none seems to have success- fully challenged his declaration, " Organic life — in its lowest form — is nothing but a form of

852 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

metabolismy and therefore purely a chemical process. The whole activity of the chromacea, the simplest and oldest organism that we know, is con- fined to the process of metabolism. The homogene- ous and structureless globules of protoplasm • • • expend their whole vital power in the process of self-maintenance." *

The close similarity of these chemical trans- formations, or metabolisms, with the activities of crystals in the process of formation have already been referred to in a previous diapter, and are well-known among scientists.

Speaking of these chemical crystallizations Haeckel says: ^'We find this elaborate chemical structure (i. e., the invisible molecular structure in the earliest life-substance), in many lifeless bodies; some of these in fact show a metabolism similar to that of the simplest organisms." He goes on to show that the catalysis (or chemical transformation) of inorganic bodies sometimes con- sists of a special form of metabolism occurring in '^ carbon assimilation " or the formation of the liv- ing substance from non-living.^

When the line of demarcation between the living and non-living is as indistinct as that, we may well believe that the supposed impassable gulf has been bridged and the formation of life, that is the in- troduction of the vital force in Nature, is effected by no break in her uniform and logical methods. The notion that '^ vitality " is a force different to

1 ^ Wonders of Life,'' p. 130. t««Wond. of Life,"?, 84.

THE LIVING AND NOT UVINQ 863

others in the operations of Nature, so long assumed by idealists and teleologists, is not only inadmis* sible in science^ but as I shall hope soon to show not necessary for the conception of a vital or psychic body existing in the physical body, and, as the psychic force of the body capable of possibly carrying it through the Stygian gloom of the grave. " It may be convenient to use the term ^ vitality ' and 'vital force/ to denote the causes of certain groups of natural operations, as we employ the terms * electricity ' and * electrical force ^ ; but it ceases to be so if we imply by such names the as- sumption that electricity and vitality are entities playing the part of efficient causes of electrical and vital phenomena/' *

In the contemplation, however, of the sudden advent of Life into a world of inanimate phenomena, whatever be its possible scientific ex- planation, we are witnessing what may well be de- clared the most amazing and bewildering of aU Nature's manifestations. To think that on a planet where once but the inert material, the stolid^ inorganic chemical element, the speechless rock^ the voiceless soil, the mindless wind, held undis- puted sway, suddenly, in an instant of time, in- finitesimal amid the grand processions of the infinite, crept in a new and most strange body^ whose future history should utterly revolutionize and transform the slowly evolving globe; to think that the moment when this occurred is imdiscover- able by the sublimest and most inspired genius

1 Huxley, art. " Biology,'* Ency. Brit

MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOBTALITY

ice has yet engendered ; that the great dramatic climax in the majestic story of existence should he 80 obscure, so modest, so hidden from diaooTery, and yet in its consequences so far-reaching^ yea a» immeasurable I To think these things, I say, ia to marvel at the simplicity apd yet the matdi-

grandeur of Nature's ways I For, but late in the advance of knowledge, out the invisible world of microscopic beings, acience

comes to reveal to mankind the very nature, Mrtory and possibilities of their perhaps immortal

CHAPTEE XXXII

CREATION AND POTENCY OF PERSONAL SOXJL

The next subject we must discuss is the capacity of the cell-souls, after they have been organized into one great soul, constituting the personal self-con- sciousness of the individual, to maintain the con- tinuity of existence in spite of the constantly dying process of the enclosing, visible framework. On the solution of this problem, in the light of accepted scientific data, will depend the legitimate conclu- sion we may draw concerning the possibility of the aggregate or individual soul of man to defy the apparent triumph of ultimate death. We must not forget that the soul of all animate and organized bodies is not primarily a unit, created out of hand at conception or copulation; but is a culmination of psychic forces which reside in millions of cells and only aggregate in one great psychic personality when the organism has been appropriately and efficiently developed.

The germinal cell-souls constitute the units of the one final and complete soul of the individual Therefore the final soul, being the component re- sult of the union of myriad germinal souls, must of course be endowed with all the characteristics and possibilities of the combined units, pins the additional and triumphant quality that foUows complete organization. Just as in the physiological

866

856 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

body, the entire organism consists onlj of the com- ponent cells, tissues, nerves, organs, etc, yet is itself much superior in capacity and possibilities to the various combined units that constitute it, because of the organization which holds them to- gether; so the ultimate personal soul is capacitated with an individual energy which is far superior in self-maintenance to the sum of the myriad of cell-souls that constitute it. When the personal soul of a chick is finally evolved, it is something wholly different to the multitudinous souls that existed in the egg from which it sprung, and which indeed constitute the complete psychic composition of the chick's souL Yet who will deny that die chick begins a life wholly different, on a different plane of existence, than that of the egg f The same is true of the relation between the soul of the larvse (grub, caterpillar, etc.,) and that of the moth and butterfly. The soul of the butterfly consists merely of the aggregation of the cell-souls of the larvse from which it sprung, yet how vastly different is the soul of the butterfly in the capacity of self-preser- vation and conquest of environment !

It is at this point, it seems to me, biologists and physiological psychologists have escaped the deeper hint of Nature. It cannot be denied that the per- sonal soul is the culminating evolution of the ag- gregation of the myriad cell-souls. Yet, when once this aggregation culminates in the full-formed organization of the individual, does it not then acquire, hy the very fact of such an ultimate organ- ization, a capacity far superior to what capacity

THE PERSONAL SOUL 867

in all the souls of which it is composed! This cannot be denied.

Here is where the soul of man, in a higher de- gree than the sotds of inferior animal organizations, attains a new and superior plane of activity and possibility ; where it becomes a force itself unique^ wholly diverse to the physical forces that inhere in the material organism, and with a capacity to over- come environment that plays an especial part in the drama of its present and possibly future ex- istence. It is necessary to elaborate this idea, for upon it depends the conclusion we must reach re- garding the possible after-life of the souL It is in my judgment the crux of the problem.

"So other student has so fully and convincingly demonstrated the proposition we are now consider- ing, from the physiological and histological point of view, as Germany's unequalled biologist, Ernst HaeckeL In his revolutionary publication ^ he has gone profotmdly and with much detail into the sub- ject, and I would recommend that all interested readers study carefully his elaborate deductions. After casting aside every conception of the soul which has come to man through myth, metaphysics, religion and theology, he himself presents a scien- tific definition which in effect is identical with the one for which we are contending in this work ; but it seems to us that he limits the logical force of his own definition by imagining that it ends where he says it does. Let us, then, carefully examine Haeckel's position.

1 " The Riddle of the Univerae," chap. VII.

368 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

He presents the following five theses as the *^ em- bryology of the soul."

(1) Each human individual, like every other higher animal, is a single simple cell at the com- mencement of its existence.

(2) This ''stem cell'' is formed in the same manner in all cases — that is by the blending or copulation of two separate cells of diverse origin, the female ovum and the male spermatozoon.

(S) Each of these sexual cells has its own '' cell soul " — that is each is distinguished by a peculiar form of sensation and movement

(4) At the moment of impregnation, not only the protoplasm and the nuclei of the two sexual cells coalesce, but also their '' cell-Bouls "; in other words the potential energies which are latent in both, and inseparable from the matter of the pro- toplasm, unite for the formation of a new potential energy, the '' germrsovi *' of the newly constructed stem-cell.

(5) By these empirical facts of conception • • • the complete copulation of the two sexual cell-nuclei marks the precise moment when not only the body but also the '' soul " of the new stem-cell makes its appearance.

With all these five propositions we fully agree, and believe that they will become the final and authoritative dictum of science. But when it comes to certain conclusions which Haeckel and others draw from these facts we believe they have entered a debatable field and engaged in an arena ^ where worthy and rational contestants will be

THE PERSONAL SOUL 3S»

found. He concludes from this, that as ^'ik» precise moment " of the origin of the soul is covered, therefore its immortality can in no be regarded by the scientists as a possibility Nature. For what has been originated by natmal forces can and will also be dissipated by natural forces. But will not this conclusion be depen upon what capacity the later natural forces ha actually generated to contend against natural fo: previously existing } As we have already said, tbft limitations that circumscribe the butterfly are nofc those of the larva from which it sprung. Why! Merely because the organism that sprung from thft incubation of the larva is of a higher and finer order than that of the mother-larva ; it has powena to overcome certain obstacles which the larva had not; therefore it is more fitted to contend againot its environment or to harmonize with it and tkna survive the demands of dissolution. Now if ik can be shown that when the personal soul is onm organized, even though we admit that its constitit- ency consists of nothing more than the germinal cell-souls of its primary units, it has achieved Igr virtue of its organization certain forces whidk enable it to overcome environment of a physical character, to which the unspiritualized vital organ- isms themselves would yield, have we not found a scientific basis for the possible survival of the aonl even after the supreme moment of physical death t This is the issue: and this issue, confronted hy nothing but the most ultra facts of the world, we shall attempt to meet.

860 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

To b^in with, Haeckel himflelf misseB a scien- tific point when he says that the biologist can place his fmger on ^^ the precise moment '^ when in copu- lation the germ-soul makes its appearance in the stem-cell. He indeed finds the precise moment of the copulation of the cell-bodies and the occasion for the germ-soul to express itself; but is all of the germ-soul in the stem-cell; has it come from no- where; has it had no existence before? Ah, now I hear the physicist exclaim, you are treading on forbidden ground ; you are becoming theosophic and entering the realm of the imagination. Not at all. I am simply prepared to emphasize certain facts and conclusions that the molecular biologists themselves draw. Listen to Haeckel: ^^A new individual comes into existence at the moment of conception; yet it is not an independent entity, either in respect of its mental or bodily features, but merely the product of the hlending of two parental factors, the maternal egg and the paternal sperm-cell." Granted; but is this all) No. Haeckel himself continues.* " The cell-souls of these two sexual cells combine in the act of the formation of a new cell-soul just as truly as the two nuclei," etc In short when the cell-soul comes into manifestation it has had already a potential existence in the parental cells from which it sprang; it is not indeed an independent entity, save to the extent in which the new organization endows it with the capacity of independence. This is the point at issue. A child is not limited absolutely to the

1 " Riddle," p. 141.

THE PEESONAL SOUL 861

capacities and characteristics of its parents; if it were there would be no variation, no individualitj, no progress or evolution. While the child possesses by hereditary results certain of its parental tend- encies, it also conies into possession of certain individual and differentiated qualities and powers which give it its personality. Now it is this law, namely, the variation of capacity that is engendered in the organization of an animal or human soul, distinguishing it from the minor cell-souls from which it has been derived, that opens up a wholly new field in psychology and enters boldly on the debatable ground of the possible future existence of the human soul.

I am inclined to the conviction that a true psychology will enable us to discern that the organ- ized psychic energies of what we call the human soul, are so capacitated as to enable it, by the very virtue of its organization, to overcome temporary and physical environment, and thus prophesy its own survival after death. I contend that the psychic counterpart of the life of the individual is a replica or duplicate of the physical; and just as we observe in the progress of the evolution of the material organism the endowment, in each new form of organization, of higher and more enduring capacities than what existed in previous, inferior forms from which it sprang; so in the full and completely developed, or highly self-conscious organization of the human soul, we discover en- during and conquering powers which do not in- here in the lower forms of life. Again Haeckel, in

• \

362 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the same chapter affords us a very good illustration of the point I am making. He says : ^^ In the case of these older and lower vertebrates that lived in the water, the embryonic development had the palingenetic character in a still higher degree • • • the familiar tadpole and the larva of the salamander or the frog still preserve the structure of their fish ancestors in the first part of their life in the water; etc, • . . Then when the inter- esting metamorphosis of the swimming tadpole takes place, and when it adapts itself to a land life, the fish-like body changes into that of a four-footed, crawling amphibian ; instead of the gill breathing in the water comes an exclusive breathing of the at- mosphere by means of lungs, and with the changed habits of life, even the psychic apparaitis, the nerv- ous system, and the sense organs reach a higher de- gree of constrtictiaru^^ Here then is the crux in the problem of physical evolution. Only as organisms become so unfolded that they adapt themselves to new environment by acquiring new organisations which are endowed with new and higher capacities than those which they possessed in lower stages, does life persist, does the individual maintain its exist- ence against opposing environment.

If then it can be shown by the study of the biological evolution and the parallel psychic devel- , opment of certain higher forms of life, such as the most developed human beings, that because of the finer organization of the biological body and the aggregate cell-souls, they attain forces sufficient to

1 " Riddle," p. 146.

THE PERSONAL SOUL 863

resist the decay of so-called death ; we will, it seems to us, have found a strictly scientific ground on which to posit the possibility of the soul's after ex- istence.

The task then which we are setting for ourselves is to discover in the evolution of the biological body,, which constitutes the actual living organism of the human individual, such a culmination as will in- dicate its endowment with psychic energies suf- ficiently dynamic to overcome death.

We have seen that in the lower animals, such as salamanders and frogs, their psychic organism, that is their nervous system, is finer and more complex than that of the tadpole from which it was de- veloped. It is because of the fact that they possess this more refined and complex psychic apparatus that they are capable of overcoming the natural death that would follow should they attempt as tadpoles to live on the land. The advanced, com- plex nervous system, which we shall soon see is the organ for the expression of all psychic energies, enables it to overcome an environment which, with- out such an organism, it could not resist So, we shall attempt to show that the biological body of which every human being consists, which is the material out of which the nervous system or psychic apparatus is constituted, reaches in certain highly developed human organisms such a complex and refined stage, that it causes the appearance of a higher and more exalted soul than what exists in ordinary physical forms.

CHAPTER XXXni

PHYSICAL ORIGIN OF SELF-CON- SCIOUSNESS

Haeckel in his intense and persist^it opposition to the idea of the soul's immortality stumbles into one or two admissions that it were well for ns to examine. He is demanding ^ that the soul must consist of " substance " for it " is actual "; neverthe- less the '^ material organs are indispensable for its action ; it is but the sum-total of their physiological f imctions." Notwithstanding that he insists on the materiality of the soul, asserting that such a thing as its " immateriality " is inconceivable, yet he does not hesitate to '^ distinguish in the * substance of the soul ' the characteristic psychic energy, which is all we perceive (sensation, presentation, volition, etc.), and the psychic matter, which is the insepa- rable basis of its activity — that is the living proto- plasm."

Here he clearly draws a difference between a certain form of energy, which is discerned in what we call mental activities, and a sublimated form of matter, which he calls living protoplasm. Certain, he must admit that, while in essence the energy and the matter are one and the same, yet in their manifestation and capacity they are different ; they operate on diverse planes; they are therefore the complements of each other. But he wars against

1 " Riddle/' chap. XL

864

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 866

the supposed invisibility of the soul ; insisting that this is the cause of all the superstitious mythologies concerning it through history. Yet let us observe, that while he insists on the actuality of the soul, he himself makes of it a wholly invisible substance. At first one may be inclined to dispute this. But an honest construction of his language, no less than the facts which he presents, will demand the con- clusion we have drawn.

If the soul, as he says, consists of a '^psychic substance,'' which in its nature is but an energy,^ he cannot deny that so much of the soul is certainly invisible, and in a certain sense, immaterial. Of course we mean " immaterial " only in degree ; for we have previously airreed that a contradistinction between L material^d the inm>aterial in nature was both impossible and inconceivable. Yet when so-called material substance becomes so sublimated that it is refined into energy, as Crookes calls it " ethereal waves of energy," surely we need not be accused of ignorance if we call such a form of mat- ter, for convenience' sake, an immaterial form. But if not immaterial, certainly it is invisible. For no energy can ever be seen, save as it acts through matter. Ah, here says Haeckel is the point So I insist Therefore I say " soul " is always visible, because it must be exercised in and through proto- plasm. True ; we say. But is protoplasm visible t In the ordinary sense it is not It is in very fact invisible matter ; and only lately has it been detected under the microscope through a certain coloring

1 See p. 184, « Riddle."

866 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

process that revealed it. Haeckel then himself makes the soul consist of invisible energy and abide in invisible substance. It is therefore even accord- ing to his definition an invisible presence, or f orce, or entity, if you please. He, therefore, becomes somewhat inconsistent when he argues against the soul being an entity from his own point of view.

However, for we must be honest and not play with a chance use of words, Haedcel here undoubt- edly meant merely to assert that the soul must have substance and cannot be a thing that is beyond the grasp of scientific human knowledge. And this point we shall not disallow, but attempt to show that even granting all his data the soul is resident in discernible substance, which however is essen- tially invisible to the human eye.

Once more let us call attention to the picture of the biological, interior organism, which exists within the outer, coarse physical body of a human being. We are told that the actual living substance of the body consists of myriads of spherically formed particles of living matter, known as bio- plasm, which are the sources of the cells> the tis- sues, the nerves, the oigans, etc., but which is itself absolutely invisible even under the strongest, un- assisted microscope. There is, then, science assures us, in each of us an in-dwelling, perfectly outlined, transparent, colorless, invisible body, of which we are at no time conscious, yet which exists as the exact counterpart and sublimated duplicate of our consciously visible and crude exterior.

We must remember that there is not a tissue, so

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 867

much as the fiye*huBdredth part of an inch in extent, but what contains a living bioplast, or sphere of invisible living substance. We must again re- call, that throughout the combined and organized tissues of our bodies these infinitesimal living organisms prevail, separated from each other by not more than the thavsandth part of an inch. Nevertheless, these minute, spherical substances (namely the bioplasm of Beale, or protoplasm of Haeckel) are colorless, transparent and invisible. They follow, however, the exact outline and config- uration of the coarser, visible frame. Hence, it is palpably indisputable, that there exists within each of us an invisible and transparent body, being the precise facsimile and counterpart of our opaque bodies, which constitutes the only living body we possess, and from which the outer and really non- living body proceeds. All this is made apparent by the discoveries of Dr. Beale to which we have al- ready referred. Darwin, also,^ speaking of this fact says : *^ It is universally admitted that the cells and units of the body increase by self-division or proliferation, retaining the same nature, and that they idtimately become converted into the various tissues and substances of the body. • . • These units in the primordial living substance, out of which the sexual and formative cells are con- stituted — exist in amnilesa mUlians throughout the system."

Haeckel, also, in the " Wonders of Life," describ-

1 " Plants and Animals Under Domestication/' Vol. II, p. 369.

868 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

ing these same infinitesmal sabstanoes sajs: *^ They can neither be called solids or fluids in the physical sense • • • they have the appearance of viscous, colorless matter.''

These bioplasts (the protoplasmic cell-organiza- tion of the animal system), that is, the grey matter of the nervous system, made of these countless mil- lions of minute points of living substance, are the actual seat of the psychic energies, or the soul of the being. Here, then, it seems to me we have discovered the true and scientific home of the elu- sive soul of man. It may be truthfully said, then, while confessedly not an immaterial entity in the sense formerly conceived, yet it is an energy con- c(»nitant and coterminous with the complex ap- % paratus of the invisible, biological, duplex frame of all living beings; that it truly pervades the animal form as well as that of man; but that its development in man, as we shall soon show, givea rise to such superior and conquering faculties as to prophesy its continued existence. The soul, may we not then truthfully say, when thus scientifically defined, pervades every part of the animal organ- ism; it is in fact not only the expression of the physiological functions of a living body, nor yet only the vital force that permeates and is expressed by and through the physical activities; but an en- ergy of a higher order, calling for a more refined and complex organism through which to express itself. While on the one hand it may be said that the rarefied and invisible, yet substantial, body of the bioplasts presents the instrument through which

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 369

the psychic energies may ezprees themselves, on the other hand, it can be said^ and substantiated by scientific evidence^ that once the bioplasts are organized in the highly complex apparatus of the human nervous and cranial systems^ the soul trans- mutes into an energy which itself becomes the potent force that controls and presides over the organism. This is the crucial point in the argu* ment^ which must not be lost sight of.

This fact becomes apparent if we study the evo- lution of the psychic apparatus of all animals from the lowest to the highest. We are taught that this energy, which even scientists are now calling a soul, is found in a germinal expression even in the lowest forms of life. Haeckel indeed goes so far as to speak of the cell-soul, the stem-soul, the germ- soul, the tissue-soul, the plant-soul, etc He says that in the earliest forms of life what we call the soul, or the energy of mind, expressed in the faculty of movement and sensation ^^ is equally distributed throughout the entire protoplasm, while in the higher forms certain ^ cell instruments,' or organr eUa, appear as their physiologic organs.'^ Thus we see that in no form of living matter, even in the unicellular unorganized bodies, is there an ab- sence of some sort of mind or soul. Moreover, we observe that as the mind-expression enlarges the system accommodates it by the development of cer- tain organs or physiological instruments through which to act. Haeckel even advocates the truth of the discovery that in the primordial protista there is a semblance to what is known in higher organ*

870 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

isms as the central nervous system, which in man in its highest form becomes the seat of self-con- sciousness.

Here let us pause a moment We find that con- scious life develops conmiensurately with the com- plexity of the nervous system and the convolu- tions of the cortical brain. ^^ Darwin who most accurately distinguishes the stages of consciousness, intelligence and emotion in the higher animals, and explains them by progressive evolution points out how difficult, or even impossible it is to de- termine the beginning of this supreme psychic faculty in the lower animals. • • • The most probable theory is that the centralization of the nervous system is the condition of consciousness." So says HaeckeL^ Then he makes an admission to which I wish to call attention. He says the centralization of the nervous system is wanting in the lower class of animals. Hence what we call the soul, in the same sense as we think of man's soul, has no actual existence in the lower animals. They have a potential or germinal human soul; but as they want in self-consciousness because of an imperfectly developed nervous system, they to that degree want in the possession of those higher psychic faculties we denominate the souL On the con- trary, parallel with the gradual development of the centralization of the nervous system, from the low- est to the highest forms of animal life, there is found the gradual higher expression of the psychic faculty, or the soul. Hence, as in man the central-

1 « Riddle," 176.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 871

ization of the STstem is most oompleted, naturally in him first has come self-consciousness. Hence, as I shall attempt soon to show, his planetary ex- istence persiste proportionaUy with Mb develop- ment of self-consciousness ; and when that power is so highly developed as to have evolved a highly complex nervous organization, it may become suf- ficiently tenacious of conscious life to hold together the bioplasts of the body and overcome the dissolu- tion of ordinary death.

We shall not be able for want of space in this book to introduce the psychological facts in sub- stantiation of the biological theory we are here advancing; but in the near future we hope to in- corporate them in a sequel that will materially enforce the presentation of the aipiment in this volume.

The fact however, as Paul Fleschig of Leipsig has shown that in the grey bed of the brain are found the four seats of the central senseK)rgans, culminating in ^ the great oocipito-temporal centre the most important of all'; that these four sense centres are distinguished from intermediate centres by peculiar and elaborate nerve-structures, which are the true and sole organs of thought and con- sciousness ; and that in man very specific structures are found in one part of them which are wanting in other mammals, thus affording an explanation of the superiority of man's mental powers,^ proves that the physiological development of the living organism, from the lowest forms to the highest,

1 " Riddle/' p. 184.

873 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

generates certain euperior fonctions in the psychic faculties which had not ezisted in the anterior forms.

This as I have said is the fact in the study of evolution that seems to have been overlooked and whose existence must put an entirely different phase on the discussion of the soul's nature and possible future.

As we have seen, all visible matter is but the un- foldment of rarefied, invisible substance, which by some is called ether ; naturally, therefore, every manifestation of both physical and psychic powers is but a varied expression of this same universal ethereal substance. Hence we may safely say that the universe is pervaded with a psychic presence, not a soul in the sense of a distinctive entity, but an energy, pervading all things which from age to age expresses itself in higher and more intelligent and conscious modes of manifestation; and that when that supreme soul-force, or etherealized in- telligence, finally expresses itself in the self-con- sciousness and most exalted thought of man, it becomes the human soul, or the psychic substance of human intelligence.

The highest and most marvelous physical expres- sion of this supreme substance in Nature is in the activity of living matter. As we have seen that one differentiation between living and non-living matter consists in its self-moving capacity; its capacity to move out toward the non-living ma- terial it desires to absorb as food or pabulum. But the highest, most marvellous and exalted psychic

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 878

expression of this same dynamic substance or ethe- real energy is wh^i thought, consciousness, and self - consciousness are witnessed among living activities. Yet we find there is just one portion of the or- ganic frame of all living bodies which becomes the seat of these two most culminating and supreme expressions of universal substance; in every mo- ment of our existence each infinitesimal bioplast (that infinitesimal spherical, transparent corpuscle of life), is achieving this matchless miracle. In no other portion of the body do we live or can we think. Only in this invisible, pulsing, magically capacitated, colorless substance do we find the high- est possibilities of the organic body. What, then, is the office and the prophecr^ of the evolution of this mysterious plasmic substance ?

CHAPTER XXXIV

PEOOFS OF THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE

AND SUPEEMACY

First, we are to observe that all the powers which prevail in the imf oldment of a vital organism exist complete in the primary protoplasm from which it evolves. We have seen that although the spherical ultimate bits of protoplasm, or bioplasm, which constitute the undifferentiated and unorganized state of vital substance, were all indistinguishable, yet that each finally proved to be the basis of a distinct individual body which finally evolved from it

Although the primal substance or bioplasm of the animal and the plant is under the microscope absolutely indistinguishable, yet the dog will always come from the canine bioplasm and the oak from the bioplasm of the acorn. On this point Herbert Spencer says: '^ It is proved that no germ, animal or vegetable, contains the slightest rudiment, trace or indication of the future organization — since the microscope that the first process sets up in every fertilized germ is a process of repeated spontaneous fission, ending in the production of a mass of cells, not one of which exhibite any special character/*

Nevertheless, as we have said, there exists in the ultimate bioplastic cell an inherent and irresistible determining force which causes that cell to multiply into the millions of cells that will produce only

374

PEOOFS OF SOUL'S EXISTENCE 875

one of all the possible biUions of organic forms that exist in Nature. Now, we may argue as we please about this, but the fact cannot be denied. There is something, or some power, that operates invisibly yet effectually in each ultimate cell of life to dif* ferentiate it absolutely from all others, although each cell chemically, under the microscope, is pre- cisely like eveiy other cell in existence.

Here then is the first problem we must try to an- swer, in discussing the presence and power of the soul. We certainly violate no scientific postulate when we declare that whatever it is that thus dif- ferentiates the individualised cell, we may justly call it a faculty of that sum of psychic energies we call the soul. We may justly assume that the sig- nificant forces which individualize and differentiate the ultimate protoplasm are hereditary, or the cul- mination of mental energies which have co-operated for countless ages, and descended finally into one individual from the first form of organised, primor- dial life.

But if that be true, then these forces become something more than mere impersonal energies ;— mere dynamic processes ; — such as the forces that operate in the production of metals and soils. We do not mean that they are different than these for we have argued earnestly for the unity of all the processes of Nature ; but we are compelled to con- clude that the forces or powers which finally cul- minate in the formation of a distinctive organio individual, out of the myriads of possible forms, are something more complex and developed than the

376 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

coarser force which cuhninates in mineral and soiL We can conceive of such a force passing through the countless ages^ ever rising to higher and higher stages of unfoldment and achieving more and more complex forms of expression, till at length the force not only becomes itself embodied in an outer form, but is the spiritual counterpart and dupli- cate of the very form which embodies it. For,

Second, we must remember that each bit of bio- plasm has an seonic history of its own. It has de- scended from time immemorial through myriad modes of expression, till it has attained its present form, and it will continue to express for endless ages yet, as its force is indestructible and its vital ma- terial, as we have seen, is itself eternal. Therefore given the bioplasm, or vital form of matter, it is not only possessed of the invisible material mould of the living substance, but it also embodies the invisible, impalpable and determining energy, which rules and controls the bioplast. That bit of bioplasm, after all, must and shall become what the forces inherent in it shall determine. It matters not that from its appearance and chemical constituency, as defined under the microscope, it might become any one of billions of forms of vitalised expression ; yet it can become one and only one form of expression, in spite of all the external elements of environment and stimuli that may play upon it The force within, the hereditary and aK>nic energy which con- stitutes its invisible self, is then (howbeit we may grant that it is but the function or expression of the molecular constituency of the living cell), the

PROOFS OF SOUL'S EXISTENCE 877

controller^ the organiser, the determiner, the maker of the outer and visible form, no less than of the inner and spiritual individuality which character- ises it This fact it would seem is indisputable. Then,

Third, as we have found that each primal bio- plasm or nucleated cell of living substance, contains its own determining and characterising force that never departs from it and which forever decides its fate; so, as the entire animal organism is composed of countless millions of these same ultimate bio- plasts or living cells, which in their union con- stitute the complete organism, it must follow that the united sum of the psychic energies of all the cells, which we have already agreed to call the soul of the full formed individual, must be the con- trolling, organising, determining and characterising principle. If then the soul, regarded in the light of being merely the sum of all the psychic energies of the multitudinous cells which compose the body, has by the very nature of its evolution come into possession of a power that makes it superior to the organism which is said to have produced it ; then it matters not, from any practical point of view, whether we believe that it had already existed in Nature as an entity and has entered full formed as such into the embryo of the future animal or man, or that it has been generated in the very process of the physical formation of the potential organism, already existing in the enbryonic form of life. Therefore,

Fourth, the fact that what we call the soul, even

878 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

though generated by the functions of physical mat- ter in a highly complex state of organisation, mani- fests a power superior to that of the cells and tis- sues, the nerves and the brain of the organism, affords suggestive ground for the supposition that it may be able to override the cast-off limitations of the physical body in the state of dissolution. There is then nothing illogical, even from the strictest scientific point of view, in regarding the indestructible, determining, hereditary eneigies which unite and organise for the generation of a physical form of life, as having actual existence, though invisible to the senses, the same as we re- gard the multitudinous cells which compose the physical body, and which are equally invisible to the unaided human eye, or the highly magnifying microscopic eye. For,

Fifth, we cannot assume that an energy has no existence. We must admit that energy, or the correlation of motion into mutually transmutable forces, is as much a fact in Nature, as the correla- tion of physical substances in chemical association. The association of such substances or elements we know results in the expression of manifest bodily forms. Because these appeal to the eye we cannot deny their existence. But neither, in logic, can we deny the actual existence of what appeals as forcibly to the reason, even though we may not be able to see it. Therefore just as we acknowledge the existence of heat, light, chemical affinity, elec- tricity, etc, as correlated forces in the physical world, whose association results in the production of

PROOFS OF SOUL'S EXISTENCE 879

visible and manifest forms; so we must also ao^ knowledge the existence of psychic or mental, and indeed ethical, forces in the world of organic life, whose association results in the production of an actual psychic organisation, and none the less actual although invisible to the senses.

In order to understand this latter point, we need merely remind the reader that all the forces, both psychic and physical, in Nature are essentially one ; each is but a differentiation of the same primary energy. We find nothing different in the force which expresses itself as electricity to the force that expresses itself as nervous energy; the proof lies in the fact that they are interchangeable or transmutable ; that an electric current will excite a flow of nervous energy, and nervous energy will generate electricity.^ We also know that heat may be transmuted into thought by the stimulation of certain nerve centres which communicate with the frontal cells of the brain* And vice versa that certain cortical cells may be so exercised as to excite in the nerve channels a sensation that will be rec- ognised as heat. Thus we might run the entire gamut of so-called physical and psychical forces and find that they are correlated and transmutable. If that be true^ then the so-called psychical forces are as actual in Nature^ ab the physical The physical forces we admit are the base and source of all psychical forms of expression. Then why shall we not equally be compelled to conclude that the psychical forces are the actual progenitors and

1 Conn, " LiTing Machine,** p. 42.

880 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

generators of the pbysical and vital organisms which they actuate? There seems to be no escape from this logic Therefore we are justified in conclude ing that we have fonnd in the scientific discovery of the law of c^mservation of energy and the cor- relation of forces the actual demonstration of the existence of the human souL But, .

Sixth, we have seen that the higher we ascend in the scale of animal organisms the more complex becomes the nervous apparatus and the profounder the consciousness of the individual, till it ascends into self-consciousness, and still higher possible forms of self-realisation* It is true we found that there also developed in parallel lines a more complex system of nerves and cranial cells. We learn from the modem biologists that indeed the human brain has not only developed a much more harmonious and complex cellular organism than all inferior animals, but that there has developed a special frontal organ which Haeckel calls the phranema; that the presence of this cellular organ makes thought possible to a highly developed human being which is impossible to lower animal forma of life. Indeed even the child has not, when, newly bom, this cranial organ, save in a rudimentary form, nor does it appear till after the first year. As the child develops, this psychological organ grows oommensurately with the unfoldment of its intelligence. But again we dis- cover that when the phronema is highly developed it becomes the instrument of the psychic energy which enfolds it and which possibly generated it; for the organised psychic force which operates

PROOFS OF SOUL'S EXISTENCE 381

throTigh and actuates it^ becomes itself a power superior to its physical organ, and can develop it into still higher functions. As the power of thought and self-consciousness develops, the corti- cal organ of thought also develops, and the mind or indwelling psychic energy can cause the changes of the cells by destroying them and generating newer and higher embodiments of the psychical force or mentality. While it is now admitted ^ that the number of the cells does not increase in the cortical areas after the third month of the em- bryonic life; yet after birth, and some think by prenatal influence even before it, the cells may be constantly renewed and enlarged by the energy of the mind itself. Therefore it is evident that al- though the mind may be but the function of the brain, nevertheless, after it has been brought into expression through the organisation of a correct apparatus, it becomes itself the manager, operator, designer and transformer of the very organ which called it into existence. Hence, I contend we need not conclude, even from the so-called materialists' point of view, that because the soul is but the sum- total of the multiple cell-souls of the body, and the mind but the function of the cellular organs of the brain, therefore the mind and the soul necessarily cease to live and work at the decease of the body. For,

Seventh, according to the law of the Conservation of Energy no force can be destroyed; it can only be transmuted ; but in the transmutation it does not

1 See ^ Growth of Brain," Donaldson, p. 160.

882 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

itself cease to exists it merely transfers its impulse to some other form of expression. Therefore once admit that the psychic energies are the consistent expression of age-long, determining forces which decide the natnre and character of every form of life, and that they themselves must be as rationally oi^nised and associated in coH>peration as the physical forms, which both give them expression and through which they operate; then we shall be compelled to conclude that those forces continue to live in invisible states as well as the forces which operate in the physical organism of the body. When the body dies, no one surmises that the forces of chemical affinity, heat^ electricity, etc., which held the components of it together, have also per- ished. We know that they have merely passed into other forms of expression, and have been dissipated only so far as the existing form was concerned in which they had formerly associated. But these physical forms of force were manifestly dependent on the material substance of the organic body. They could manifest as an animal or human body only so long as they could cohere in the form of that body. When their coherence or cohesion ceased the body fell apart But we have seen that the psychic forces which have through endless centuries aggre- gated to organise the vital form of man or animal, or that found in such an organisation an instrument through which to express themselves, become supe- rior to the temporary form which they actuate, and in certain forms of expression rise independently above it. By this statement I mean that there is

PROOFS OF SOUUS EXISTENCE 888

a yast number of psychological phenomena which have been well attested hj competent witnesses^ but whose discussion we shall be compelled to postpone to another volume, which demonstrates the inde- pendent action of these psychic f orces, whose sum total is what we call the human soul, and whose persistence, therefore, after the dissipation of the mortal mouldy may be accepted as a logical possi- bility.

But will this organisation of psychic forces, after the physical body has dissolved, have an actual physical, howbeit invisible, framework in which to operate ?

CHAPTER XXXV

IDENTITY OF SUBSTANCE, ENERGY

AND SPIRIT

We ahotdd carefully hold in mind that we are now studying three distinctive phases of the activity of Universal Energy. We have first to remember, as we have heretofore shoMni, that what is conceived as infinite substance, whether it be ether or even a still more rarefied form of matter, is the essence of all phenomena and the substratum of the Energy that everywhere prevails. That is, no form of en- ergy manifested but is exercised in and through some form of substance. As a corollary it follows that the most refined forms of Energy operate through the most rarefied conditions of substance; and, contrary, the coarsest or densest phases of ethereal vibration are revealed in the most opaque and crudest forms of matter. In the last analysis all forms of matter are reducible to a rarefied con- dition that resolves into pure energy, a spiritual force beyond the apprehension or appreciation of material organs ; and, vice versa. Energy descends from its most rarefied and exalted phase through infinite gradations into the crude and palpable forms of matter to which the vulgar senses are amenable. We may, therefore, without doing violence to scien- tific knowledge, speak of infinite Energy as the universal Spirit, and infinite Substance as the uni- versal Form or Body of the world. We are here

384

SUBSTANCE, ENERGY, SPIRIT 38S

approaching that phase of interpretation 'which has appealed to the mystics of all ages ; conceiving of the Energy to which we are referring as the Over-Soul of the world operating in and throughout its en- tirety, and the manifest universe as the garment with which the invisible presence clothes itself. That is, however, a poetic description, which in an actual sense we now see has a scientific foundation.

Science, indeed, is rapidly dissipating the tradi- tional notion of the difference between matter and force or energy. In the light of most recent dis- coveries, as we have demonstrated in previous pages, ^the two are actually but one and the same thing. The atom, once supposed to be the minutest con- ceivable form of matter, being itself but an imagi- nary, hypothetical substance, is now shown by recent experiments to be a really large and crude affair. This most Ancient Atom, the heritage of Democ- ritus and Leucippus, of Grecian glory, is now reducible into something infinitely smaller, a so- called electrical unit, an ion or corpuscle. These electrons are at present the minutest conceivable points of infinite energy, ** Compared with these/^ says a recent writer, '^ the atom must be something gigantic, d huge composite, made up, perhaps, of the corpuscles themselves • • . The atom may be conceived as a great swarm of corpuscles, revolv- ing about a mutual centre, much as our planets revolve around the sun."

Not only is there such an infinite swarm of elec- trical units, or points of energy, in each single atom, but there is absolutely no distinguishable difference

386 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

in the nature or capacity of each one of these in- finitesimal centres. There Ib^ according to this an- alysis of matter, only one reason why things material appear different to ns ; that reason is be- canse of the number of corpuscles in each atom and the rapidity of the rotation of these bits of primal substance. Being resolved into mere electrical units means, of course, that the last analysis of matter is a form of energy, and that we apprehend merely the sensation of varying forms of energy when we feel and see what we call material sub- stance.

Hence, what appears to us as matter is nothing more than the resultant of the equilibrium of forces, mutually playing on one another. Says Sir Oliver Lodge (Harper's, Aug., 1904). '^ Matter appears to be composed of positive and negative electricity and nothing else." In other words, what we call matter is the condition of equilibrium in energy, resulting from the play of positive and negative electricity. The unit of electricity is then both a centre of force and a germ of matter. Yet elec- tricity itself is but a mode of motion, as heat, light, etc Hence the electrical unit of matter, that is matter in its last analysis, is a mode of motion or a form of energy. " The formation of matter out of electricity," says Lodge, " is a new idea." But it is confessedly the last if not the chiefest triumph of modem science. Thus we see how Shakespeare anticipated the great modem discovery in the poetic imagery of Prosperous description :

SUBSTANCE, ENERGY, SPIRIT 887

^ like the baseless fabric of this yision. The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces. The solemn temples, the great globe itself.

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded.

Leave not a wrack behind. We are such stu£E

As dreams are made of/'

Infinite Energy reveals itself in all the varying forms of universal substance; therefore, whatever form of life in inorganic or organic phase exists it is but a manifestation of this same infinite energy. Two supreme forces are manifest in all forms of living matter; one is the vital force, the force that animates the physical material into the capacity of self-sustenance ; the other is the psychic force, the force that reveals the workings of the universal energy in forms of thought, emotion, volition and intelligence.

We are not justified in declaring that vital force is different from all the other phases of infinite energy we call material forces, such as light, heat, electricity, etc For nothing exists in Nature other than her own elements, and we cannot read any more energy into her activities than already exists and has existed from the beginning of the world. Therefore, whatever vital force or or- ganic life may be, it can be only such a force as is correlated with all the known forces of nature. The same must be said of the psychic force, the force that inheres in the activity of the mind and so-called souL If it cannot be correlated with the

388 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

known forces of Nature then science can take no cognisance of it, and it becomes but the subject of metaphysical imagination. But as thought is an actual phenomenon in the activities of the world it is a subject of which science must take cognisance. Therefore science insists that it must be one of the correlative forces of Nature, although operating on a hi^ier and more rarefied plane of action than vitalism or electricity or any of the cruder material forces. Only by way of contrast are we justified in speaking of the psychic and the vital forces as immaterial forces, while we refer to electricity, heat, eta, as material Only by contrast because of the higher frequency of the vibrations of thou^t and vitalism may we conceive them as immaterial; only because they aj^roach much nearer to the supposed ultimate ethereal nature of infinite substance.

What we call the soul of a living organism, then, may justly be defined as those expressions of the infinite Energy which pertain to the vitalistic and psychic forces that sustain it ; the lower expression of the two, being the vitalistic, more immediately related and adjoined to the functions of the ma- terial organs, might therefore be called the Spirit of the body (in the sense of being the vital breath that pervades it) ; while the psychic force, being apparently less immediately associated with the material functions, (where resides the supreme, and as yet mysterious, activity of the personal con- sciousness), might be distinctively known as the SouL

SUBSTANCE, ENERGY, SPIRIT 889

In this BenBe the spirit and the soul, being to- gether the personal expression of the Universal Energy that transmutes diffuse Ether, or sublimated substance, into visible form, are the controlling and divine agencrfr of all life. They are the expressions of the universal Energy that evolve from the low- est stages of matter the most complex organisms; they manifest in these living organisms their su- preme power of transforming so^alled ^^ dead " mat- ter into " living " matter ; yet ever are they together but the same One Energy operating in the same One Substance differentiated into vitalistic and psychic forces, or energies of organic activity and functional mentality.

Energy cannot express itself except in some sub- stantial form however rarefied. Therefore both the phases of vitalistic and psychic energy must have some material expression; that is must operate through some material instrumentality. What then is this! We have seen that Biology insists there is in proper classification but one living plane of material organism in a vital body. The larger part of the body is scientifically dead ; only a very minute portion is in this sense alive. That minute portion of the body, the region that is occupied alone by the grey substance of the nerves and the brain, the realm of the ultimate bioplasts, is alone alive, all the rest has been deprived of the vital function. Each one of these invisible bioplasts is constantly performing its miraculous function of changing visible, opaque, chemically defined and organised matter, in an instant, into transparent, in-

890 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

visible, Btructureless matter, whose cbemical nature is wholly nnknowiu Every moment each one of these vital atoms evidences the marvellous work- ings of this undefined activity in Nature; an ao* tivity which is so utterly differentiated from all other natural processes that for ages man thought it set at naught the well fixed laws of the universe and defied the mechanical structure of the world.

We learn, then, that the residence of that active principle of infinite Enei^, which we have agreed to know as the human soul, is, in its phase of vital acUvity, discovered in these invisible bio* plasts; for within these microscopic bodies, which exist by the countless millions in every living body, the soul operates and sustains those functions that maintain the vital integrity of the organism. Again we must emphasise the fact that these in- finitesimal bits of vital substance, bioplasms, are spread over every minutest section of the tissues that compose the body of man or other living thing. Hence, what, perhaps, for the sake of distinction, we may call the Vital Soul, pervades the entire organism and through the two nerve systems, the central and the sympathetic, absolutely controls all its functions and its planetary destiny.

Can we, however, also find the residence of that other phase of the human soul, which for the sake of contrast, we shall call the Psychic Soul ? That is, as we have found a material home in the human body for the Vital Soul, can we also find within this same body a physical home for the Psychic Soult

SUBSTANCE, ENERGY, SPIRIT 891

In order to do this we must first understand what we mean by psychio forces, by thought, volition, emotion, etc Have we here to deal with an element in Nature that is so utterly differentiated from all other natural elements as to be incapable of oor- relative classification with the rest, and, therefore, utterly beyond the reach of empirical science? Many have so thought The seat of consciousness has been the inmost secret of Nature and the imr passable gulf between psychical science and meta- physics, between soul and substance, mind and matter. A great scientist, Du Bois-Reymond, says with much emphasis, ^' The minutest Imowledge of the brain, the highest which we can obtain of it, reveals nothing in U but matter and motion. By no imaginable device in the arrangement and motion of material particles, however, can a bridge be made into the domain of consciousness. Motion can pro- duce only motion or be transposed into potential energy. . • . The mental processes which are accompanied by certain material processes in the brain, fail, therefore, to have a sufficient cause for our tmderstanding. They stand outside the causal nexus, and, therefore, incomprehensible as mobile perpetuum would be."/

This is the traditional attitude of the old science and the old psychology. But the astounding dis- coveries of histologists in the realm of the brain, showing how no thought at all in the sense of con- scious thought exists until a certain cortical organ,

I'^Ueber die Qrenzen des Naturerkennens/' quoted in Raue's "Psychology," p. 196.

892 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

late in the deyelopment of human life, appears, nehich as we have already said is wholly wanting in the newborn babe, except in its germinal state, in- dicate that the supposed wide gulf between the mental and the material world has no actual ex- istence. The cause of disagreement between physi- ologists and psychologists, or spiritualists and materialists, is I believe that they do not agree on what they mean by thought and mental action.

If we restrict our notion of thought to the human mind, we may be confused in our analysis. But if we recognise thought as a cosmic activity mani- fested in the logical relation and mutual functioning of the infinite phenomena of the universe, we will not be so much perplexed with apparent inconsist- encies. A thought in a human being is, apparently, the result of the play of certain forces upon the grey matter of the nervous system, which generates a registration in the brain that we call thinking or consciousness in the form of perception, sensation or reflection. Science is beginning to indicate that thought is an electro-magnetic process, affecting the biological cells of the cortical areas. ^

It is, then, manifest that we think and are con-

1 " The remaricable investiflatSons during the laet few deo- ades of the finer texture of the grey cortex . • . have shown that its structure . • . represents the most per> feet morphological product of plasm; and its physiological function — mind — is the most perfect action of a 'dynamo machine'; the highest achievement that we know of any where in Nature. Millions of psychic cells, or neuroma, • • . are associated as especial thought organs at certain parts of the cortex, and these again are built up into a large harmonious system of wondernil regularity and capacity.** Haeckel, " Wonders of Life," p. 328.

SUBSTANCE, ENERGY, SPIRIT 898

scious becauBe the primal Substance or Infinite Eneigy of the universe, somehow, plajs upon certain parts of our organism, and sets up specific chemical and electrical activities and relations that we call thought and consciousness. Just how this is done nobody yet knows, any more than they know just how gravitation is generated, or how waves of ether are differentiated into sound and light and electric vibrations. Yet as we may distinguish be- tween the phenomena of light, sound and electricity, and therefore recognise their visible differences, howbeit we cannot tell how their differences originated in Nature, so we may, likewise, distin- guish between a negative and positive force of electricity and the cortical area through which it plays, but cannot tell how it is that the activity of the latter converts the chemical resultants in the former into what we call thought as distinguished from motion.

Du Bois-Reymond may be right; we are able to see nothing but motion in the most profound investi- gation of the brain ; hence we cannot see where mo- tion passes into mind. But is his conclusion right necessarily, that, therefore mind and matter, thought and motion are two utterly different modes of existence? Two chemical elements mixed and electrified result in a substance absolutely foreign to themselves; yet all we can detect by the utmost capacity of the keenest microscope is the motion that the electric spark sets in action ; we cannot see how the electric action converts the resulting motion between the elements into a wholly foreign sub-

894 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

stance. AH we know is that in one case one form of inert motion is suddenly converted into another form of dynamic motion, and the final result is a complete transformation in the elements affected. The motion only can be detected; the how of the result cannot be.

So is it in witnessing the result of cortical brain-action set up among the thought centres by electrical motion. All the microscope can detect is the motion; how the motion is converted into thought is beyond present discovery. But it oc- casions no more mystery, nor ou^t to be regarded as anything more supernatural or utterly incapable of coirelation with the other activities of Nature, than the conversion of electrical action into a new chem- ical substance through the bodies of originally dis- tinct elements.

The primal substance and energy of the universe is of course everywhere the same ; but under certain conditions it is differentiated into infinite grada- tions of motion, some of which we call matter and others mind; some, material activity and others thought; some cortical electrification, and others, reflection and consciousness. Thought, then, is a Cosmic Process; it exists everywhere in Nature. It is the result of the operation of Infinite Eneigy or Universal Spirit (whichever term you prefer) upon the infinite media of expression that Nature presents. It is, however, no less '^ thought '' in the mineral, because it has not the organism of the plant through which to express itself in the higher form ; nor less is it ^^ thought," save in degree, in the

SUBSTANCE, ENERGY, SPIMT 395

radely developed animal of the inferior kingdoms, because it must needs express itself through smoother and less convoluted brain substance than man possesses* Nor in the lesser forms of human life, the baser, savage, and undeveloped human primates, is the brain action other than the same ^^ thought," save only in degree, than what is re- vealed in the cortical activity of a Shakespeare or a Michael Angelo.

Nature in all her elements is reducible to one, identical Substance ; and all forms of psychic mani- festation, from the first suggestive irritability of the amcebffi to the highest phenomena of thought and spiritual discernment, in earth's profoundest gen- iuses, are but varying degrees of the one, infinite and identical Energy, that actuates and sustains the universe.

We have seen above how there is a distinctive material residence in the human body for that phase of the infinite energy which we have agreed to call the Vital Soul of man ; that place of the residence is the realm of the countless bioplasts that pervade the entire organism. But we discover that that realm, being as has been shown, the only vitalised and active portion of the entire physical organism, must also be the plane of action on which the so- called Psychic Soul of man must operate. The invisible bioplastic body, then, which as we have already shown is in contour the exact counterpart of the exterior physical frame, is the seat of the human soul, in its two phases of manifestation, namely, as Vital Soul and as Psychic Soul.

896 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMOBTALITY

To sum up the thou|^t advanced in this chapter we find that the three phases of Infinite Energy with which we have to deal, namely. Universal Substance, Vital or Animal Soul and Psychic or Spiritual Soul, are all one in essence. We are, therefore, I believe, justified in presenting the fol- lowing c(mclusions as scientific and logical: The living substance we call bioplasm is the direct, natural product, in aU living organisms, of the activity of Universal Substance when specifically energized and transformed by Infinite Energy.

This region of the vital activity, then, the realm of the bioplasts, is not only the residence of the hu- man soul, but the mediate residence of the World- Soul; it is played upon, not only by the limited activities of animated organic bodies, but indirectly, that is primarily, by the infinite potentiality of the controlling Power of the universe.

What conclusions, then, are we justified in draw- ing from these scientific facts, with reference to the soul and its possible future existence {

CHAPTER XXXVI

SCIENTIFIC INTIMATIONS OF THE SOUL'S SURVIVAL

We have seen that what we call the Soul is^ after all, not an indefinable, undemonBtrable, and im- possible Something, whose grasp is beyond the realm of rational science. It is the product of definitive forces. These forces are the correlates of the com- mon forces of the physical world. But all forces are indestructible. They can be transmuted into each other but they cannot be aimihilated. There- fore the so-called soul-forces are as permanent and indestructible as the physical forces, so-called. But all forces express themselves through the media of material substances. As chemical force is mani- fested in mineral and organic phases of matter, so vital and psychic forces are manifested in the activities and formation of the ultimate or vital substance, known as plasm or bioplasm. Just as chemical force has produced from chaotic and un- differentiated, natural Substance, the various forms of inorganic and organic matter ; so out of the same substance the Vital and Psychic Forces have evolved the physical forms that embody them. We can scarcely say that the Substance existed anterior to the Force or that the Force antedated the Sub- stance ; as they are identical and coterminous, they must have always conjointly existed. Or better said, as they are but differentiable expressions of

897

898 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the same thing they most ever have coexisted. Therefore the effort of the Idealist to determine that refined energy or spirit pre-existed matter, or that of the Sensationalist, that matter pre-existed energy or spirit, is equally futile and undisceming. Both have always existed.

But this is also true: — As Energy has ever actuated Substance, or, if you please, as Substance has ever manifested Energy (either horn of the dilemma is agreeable to me) there resulted certain specified dynamic forms of expression, which them- selves, by the very reason of the organism through which they operate, became the actuating and con- trolling agent. Once universal Substance is differ- entiated into the force of Vitalism, then that force itself by reason of its own inertia establishes certain resistance to disint^ration that insures its organism a certain degree of durability. In the same manner, once Infinite Energy, unpersonified Sub- stance, is differentiated into Psychic Energy, or con- scious thought, volition and reflection, it becomes a distinctive, self-sustaining force that defies the tendency of the lower organism to yield to destruc- tive environment

Hence, we may say without scientific violence, that the inherent or actuating soul, especially in its phase of Psychic Energy, having once established a physical residence for itself, tends to prolong if not perpetuate the material in which it resides. Adding to this the fact that the peculiar material which it has evolved for itself is endowed with the quality of indestructibleness or immortality, we

SCIENTIFIC IKTIMATIONS 899

witness a combination that may well be supposed to produce marveUous results.

There was a time^ perhaps millions of years ago, when infinite Energy first organized those specific forces which constitute the so-called soul of a living being. The generating force or Supreme Energy must have always existed ; hence once the vital and psychic forces (capable of becoming manifest in an organized body of indestructible material-sub- stance) ^ make their appearance, they become per- manent factors in the world-evolution.

Why should not auch a wonderful power as that which is capable of transforming lifeless and inert matter into vital, thinking, self-conscious sub- stance, also possess sufficient persistency to extend the duration of the invisible, yet material, the think- ing, yet purely mechanical, organism, which it ac* tuaies, into an indefinite periodf

That is the question. This power, however we may define it, having from lifeless substance gener- ated the vital, invisible, howbeit physical, figure of man (which exists unseen within the outer frame, of which man alone is conscious), how can we prove it to be incapable, after the dissolution of the visible body, of moulding anew this invisible substance into finer and more sublimated forms) We must not forget that bioplasm is structureless, and there- fore incapable of chemical analysis. That it is primarily indestructible, requiring but the proper environment to keep it alive forever. Does the power which the so-called soul possesses give any hint that it may be capable of establishing such an

400 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

environment for the organized bioplastic body that it may aurvive death? This is the cruz of the entire problem. If scienoe cannot help us at this point then it is utterly unavailable in determining the problem of the after-death eidstence of the human soul. To this problem, then, let us address ourselves.

We must recall first that Death is not an original principle of Nature. There is a vague hint at the truth in the Biblical story of the introduction of Death as a secondary event in Nature. '^ It is a well-known fact to which scientists and thinkers have more than once called our attention that there is no natural death among the lowly organized animals, that stand at the bottom of the ladder of evolution. Moners and amoebas grow and divide ; and if they are not starved or crushed to death, they will live and multiply into eternity. The moner which we fish out of a pond of stagnant water for observation to-day, is the same individual or a part of the same individual, that lived sBons ago, long before man appeared upon the earth." ^

Death entered into the world of life after the original amoebic forms developed by fission or by self-division. These self-divided parts of the first forms of life never die a natural death. It is only after the original unorganized forms of life begin to assume sexual qualities, and reproduce by ferti- lization in mutual unions, that death enters 'On its grewsome course. Therefore the only way we now know for the higher animal forms to continue their

1 * The Soul of Man," P. Ganu, p. 808.

SCIENTIFIC INTIMATIONS 401

existence is through the fecundation of the female organ. The sperm so gestated lives on forever hy a repetition of the procreative capacity.

Hence in all organized and sexualized forms of life nothing remains of it but the sexual cellS| or units of life, that unite in the male and the female to perpetualize the common existence. From this fact we would be led to believe that the invisible, biological form of the body which dwells within its outer framework, which is its only actually living portion, would not survive the dissolution of the outer frame in death; but being unsupported it woidd with the outer body also starve and pass into nonexistence. It must be admitted that all we can show, in regard to this problem, from the present knowledge of science, is that there is a tendency to prolong the life of the bioplasts, but whether it will ever be proved that that tendency is a sufficient force to cany the invisible, physical body into a form of life beyond the grave is now a debatable proposi- tion. Here we are forced to be contented merely with speculation, and patiently to await further scientific knowledge. However, there is so much that is suggestive in recent discoveries concerning these small bodies of life that constitute the vital portion of the himian body, it may prove helpful to consider them.

Darwin made some observations on this subject,^ to which I would call attention. He shows that the countless atoms of life which constitute a living body do not absolutely depend upon the external organism

1 ** Plants and Animala under Domestication."

402 MODERN LIGHT ON DOiORTALITT

for their life-functions and their vital persistence. Whereas we know that the original life-forms, the moners for instance, are absolutely free and live without external conjunction, depending for vitality onlj on the substance they absorb for food; the organised corpuscles or amcdbee, which associate to constitute a sexualized and highly complex vital body, depend upon their mutual relationship for their own continuance and the persistence of the organism. Darwin says that these myriad vital atoms are themselves sexualized and meet in mutual nuptials within the body, thus maintaining it^

Whatever force, then, enters the system to vitalise and actuate the functions of these minute living particles (the bioplasts to which we have often referred), it tends, of course, to increase their tinions and thus maintain a longer duration of the organised body. Have we reason as yet to assume that these minute atoms of life are not of them- selves so endued with dynamic powers that they may persist by their own nature in spite of a changed or possibly antagonistic environment? That is, can we show any scientific fact that would lead us to believe that these minute organisms may possess within themselves such dynamic persistency as to

1 " It is universally admitted that the cells or units of the body increase by self-division or proliferation, retaining the same nature, and they ultimately become converted into the various tissues and substances of the body. . . . Theae granules (or gemmules) are collected from all parts of the body to constitute the sexual elements, and their develop- ment in the next generation forms a new being. . . . The gemmules in their dormant state have a mutual affinity for each other, leading to their aggregation into buds or into the sexual elements." " An. and PI. under Dom.," p. 370.

SOIENTIFIO INTIMATIONS 408

insure their continuance nnder circmnstances abeo* lutelj different from those in which they now exist ? Could they in short continue to live as organised bodies^ to unite in sexual unions and generate en- vironing embodiments^ if they were removed from the compact organism in which they were gener- ated?

If we can show this^ it may lead us to see how possibly the organised bioplasts of the human body^ whose existence normally depends on the vital and psychic energies which enter them through the external physical body, might find a means of sub- sistence, when that body is removed. Certain biological facts seem to point in that direction. Darwin hints at the problem here involved by stating that in point of fact it is not the ^^ reproduo- tive organs " which generate the new organism, but the gemmules or bioplasts themselves which con- stitute the organic body.* The persistency of the formative elements (called variously " morpholog- ical imits,*' by Huxley, " bioplasms'' by Beale, " plastids " by Haeckel, " gemmules " by Darwin, " biogens '' by Max Verworm, or " idioplasms " by Naegeli), is one of the marvels, if not indeed the great secret, of biological evolution. It seems that they may be removed from the immediate body in which they were generated, and transplanted on another of a wholly different species, and will never- theless develop their own individual characteristics and organs, as they would have done had they re- mained in their normal environment. Darwin

lAiL and PI. under Dom., p. 370.

404 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITT

points out how these vital or formative elements are so strong that often in grafting, the transplanted limb or member will continue in its original form even on an incongruous organism.^ He insists that countless millions of these formative units of inoon- ceivably minute size are continually being thrown off from the formed organisms of the body, and that their unions are the cause of the formation of the tissues and organs of the body.'

He assumes that these infinitesimal atoms of life have a peculiarly significant self-persistency, be- cause they are so inconceivably minute and have the capacity of self-multiplication. He argues that '^the retention of the free and undeveloped gem- mules in the same body from early youth to old age will appear improbable, but we should remember how long seeds lie dormant in the earth and buds in the bark of a tree.'' ' He also insists that these cells or units may continue to live for a long period and self multiply, "without being modified by their union with free gemmules of any kind " ; ^ and he

1 W., p. 377.

2 " PhysiologisU maintain that each unit of the body, thouffh to a large extent dependent on others, is likewise to a certain extent independent or autonomous, and has the power of increasing by self-division. I go one step further and as- sume that each unit easts off free gemmuleB which are dis- persed throughout the system, and are capable under Proper conditions of being developed into stmtlor unite. . . . The formative matter which is dispersed throughout the tissues of plants, and which is capable of beinff developed into eaeh unit or part, must be generated there oy some means, and my ehiei assumption is that this matter consists of ndnuta particles or gemmules east off from each other unit or oelL" JA, p, 371.

• P. 873.

*P. 377.

SCIENTIFIC INTIMATIONS 406

evidences this by many facts. He shows^ in the first place, that these units may multiply and pro- duce complete organisms without sexual fertilizor tion; thus proving their individual persistency.^

He shows, next, that the formative persistency of these units is so strong, that often amputated mem- bers of the body will grow again, and perfect limbs be produced, where the former one had been.^ Again he shows ^'the functional independence of the Elements or Units of the body," by enumerating many cases, such as the spur of a cock being inserted into the ear of an ox and lived for eight years and acquiring a weight of fourteen ounces ; the tail of a pig being grafted into the middle of its back reac- quiring sensibility ; a dog's bit of a bone being in- serted under the skin of a rabbit, when true bone developed ; the mammee of a cow being transplanted to the ear of a pig, when they generated lactile fluid that could be extracted ; etc., etc.*

He shows further that each independent unit, inconceivably infinitesimal as it is (billions of them probably existing in any one organic body), has its own specially endowed capacity of vital per^ sistence. "Whichever view may be correct every one admits that the body consists of a multitude of organic units, all of which possess their own proper

1 *' The well-ascertained cases of Parthenogenesis prove that the distinction between sexual and asexual generation is not nearly so great as was formerly thought ; for ova, occa- sionally, and even in some cases, frequently, become developed into perfect heinffe, without the eonoourse of the male," P. 352fr.

« P. 353.

« Pp. 364, 5, 6.

400 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

attributes, and are to a certain extent independent of all others/*

Virchow insists that '' every element has its OTm special action . • . and alone effects the actual performance of duties. • . • Every single bone corpuscle really possesses conditions of nutrition peculiar to itself." ^

These facts then, plainly indicate that the bio- plasts, or primary vital elements, exercise a per- sistency or continuity of their own, and do so even when opposed by disint^rating or permutating in- fluences.

But all this being so, we must not overlook one more and very important fact Even when we have gotten to these minute micro-organisms, which in themselves are endued with individuating and hereditary forces, we have not yet reached the ultimate of vital matter. These multitudinous, in- finitesimal units spring from one original, indiris- ble, undifferentiable source, namely the mother plasm, the primary, invisible, higher than micro- scopical source of all. Whatever is seen under the microscope is still differentiable and is not the last basis of analyzable substance. That is necessarily beyond discovery. It is self-germinating, and self- sustaining. It is structureless, uncomposed of sep- arable substances; but, as its vitalizing energy does not have its source in the decaying body, but within itself, is it an absolute dictum of science that it necessarily dissolves. with the decaying external body?

iP. 364.

SCIENTIFIC INTIMATIONS 407

We must note the further fact that the self-per- sistence of the ultimate vital units is also indicated in the slow process of decay in a dead body. If we look at a tree we observe that it does not die at once ; it dies by slow degrees ; many parts of the roots are often decayed and the interior of the trunk is wholly pulverised with dry rot, yet high above the branches still leaf and fructify. Even after it is chopped down, how long a time it demands for dry- ing and final decease in all its elements. Only bit by bit, tissue by tissue, nerve by nerve, cell by cell, does it depart this life; as if still lingering on to partake of its pleasures which it is loth to relinquish.

The same is true of the remains of a once living animal organism whether of man or the lower king- doms. Not only does the body not die at once, but after the moribund condition has set in it requires sometimes months and years before it finally surren- ders the fortress of life ; but even after the visible manifestation of vitality has gone, the body still lives in many of its parts. So true is this fact that bodies may be revitalised and brought back to life by electrical and mechanical devices, when by the ex- amination of every physiological test known they were pronounced dead. For this reason many peo- ple are doubtless buried partially alive, and no doubt, as has often been proved, have awakened in the coffin after buriaL All this goes to show that something persists with vital energy, even after such energy has ceased to manifest itself in the visible body. What is it that persists and where does it manifest itself {

408 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITT

As we have shown, in the analysis previonsly given, what persists is what we call the vital and the psychic Bonls. How far they may continue to per- sist in the deceased body after death is at present of course merely conjectural ; but the fact that they can persist at aU after the moment of actual physical decay is itself sufficiently suggestive to awaken se- rious speculation*

Nearer and nearer modem science is approach- ing the solution of the problem. I find in a work of which Dr. Gibier, of the Pasteur Institute of New York and formerly associated with Pasteur per- sonally in Paris, is the author,^ he claims that in 1887, during the yellow fever scourge in Cuba, he drew some liquid through the walls of the bladder of a corpse {dead for two hours), into a tube of glass (Pasteur's pipette). With the broken and irregular end of the tube, which had been previously passed through the flame of an alcohol lamp, he lightly scraped the internal wall of the viscus and drew by aspiration a small quantity of the liquid contents. The tube was immediately sealed, and an hour and a half after its contents were placed in liquefied and neutral "gelose," which was placed in watch crystals and protected in china vessels. Dr. Gibier claims that after a few days, in the transparent medium of agar-agar, a number of whitish, irregularly shaped pellicles appeared, which were augmented day by day. In short, he claims that this experiment demonstrates the fact that the original living units vnll, under proper

1 *' PsyehiBm/' p. 241.

SCIENTIFIC INTIMATIONS 409

conditions^ propagate themselves without contact with other living matter. He was interrupted in the repetition of the experiment and therefore gave it to the scientifical world only tentatively. But it affords a goodly hint of the probable truth.

Could this experiment be demonstrated beyond a doubt, and it seems more than probable that it soon will be, it would absolutely prove Darwin's theory of Parthenogenesis, but in a more striking and far-reaching manner than even Darwin himself seemed to foresee. What, then, are the conclusions to be logically drawn from these recent and most startling scientific facts with reference to the pos- sible future existence of the human soul ?

CHAPTER XXXVII

PHYSICAL AOT) PSYCHICAL IMMORTALITY

This essay does not pretend to assert that science has jet demonstrated the actual future existence of the soul ; but it does not fear to assert, that if we are to apply our natural reasoning powers to the data which science is speedily furnishing us we are forced to conclude that these data point most effectually in that direction. We are in this work referring only to the physical sciences, such as physiology, histol- ogy, biology, etc, which we have employed in these pages ; as we have intimated we shall have to wait the opportunity of preparing a sequel in which the present argument from the physical sciences will be reinforced by psychological data of recent de- velopment that point almost conclusively to a final solution of the problem. Yet it is never safe to be dogmatic on any scientific solution till it is finally decided by the dictum of Nature. And for that all rational beings will certainly wait in the de- cision of a problem so almost inpenetrable as the existence of life after death. Nevertheless, we do not concede the attitude of certain writers, such as John Fiske, for instance,^ that there is neither room on the one hand for science to enter this field

■

1 *' MiBoellftneouB Writings/' Vol. YIII, p. 72, Houghton, Mifflin ed., 1902.

410

PHYSICAL IMMOKTALITY 411

of discussion, for it can by no possibility solve the problem ; nor that on the other hand any negative conclusions of science will not invalidate the ground of hope in the immortality of the human souL I believe that Science will ultimately solve every problem that confronts the human mind and that to despair is to become absurd. So long as life is a phenomenon in Nature it must be amenable to human research and its origin subject to the knowl- edge of man. If then it should prove to be true that life after death is also a phenomenon in Nature (for there is nothing outside of Nature), then that life, its character, evolution and history, must also be amenable to human research and apprehension.

Attending, then, to certain facts already pre- sented and others to be presented let us study their trend and force relative to our discussion.

Already we are learning that the conception of mysteiy as to the origin of human life is being ab- rogated by profound thinkers and investigators, and that it is being put in the category of apprehended natural phenomena. Recent experiments which Dr. Loeb and Prof. Matthews made at the Chicago TJniversily and published in the Century Magor zine,^ point effectually in this direction. Prof. Matthews says : ^' The physical explanation of the phenomena of life will • . • bring us a step nearer the understanding of other life-phenomena, the artificial synthesis of living matter, and the pro- longation of life. There is apparently no inherent

1 March, 1902, p. 792.

412 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITT

reason why a man should die, except our ignorance of the conditions governing the reaction going on in his protoplasm."

This may be so ; it may be that the proof will yet be forthcoming, as so strongly intimated by Loeb and Metchnikoff, and that we shall acquire snch knowledge of the nature and possibilities of the life-giving microbes of the human system, that by intelligent use of our knowledge we may actually prolong the present physical life indefinitely. But should this prove to be true, it must be apparent that we shall then also develop a much more rare- fied and complex organism than the one we now possess, which is subject to constant fear of the ap- proach of death. That will, of course, mean that the inner, invisible organism of infinite vital-atoms will more and more gain on the coarser exterior form, and bit by bit itself become more and more the visible body we occupy. But why may we not also, and as legitimately, conclude that that refined and most extraordinarily complex, but invisible body, which even now constitutes the actual matrix of our outer physical frame, consisting as it does of its own self-sustaining psychic and vital energies, will itself persist beyond the external death, having, by that event, come into an environment more con- genial to its continued evolution t

It may be true, that the entire race will gradually evolve to the exalted physical condition of indefinite vital persistence on this planet, through millions of years or far-reaching sBons. But long before the race, as such, will have evolved to this lofty phys-

PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY 413

ical state, there will be evidences of individual and extraordinary eases of life-persistency. Gradually so much of the race will be permanently preserved as is capable of learning and applying the newly discovered principles of the Science of Life, while those who are ignorant or incapable of utilizing the knowledge that future discoveries may afford them, wiU perish forever, and permit the more f oi- tunate or aggressive to survive and become the means of developing the rest of the race.

But, pari pasm, may not this same argument be applied to the possible persistence of the invisible matrix of the physical framework of life, to which we have so often referred ! May it not be possible that there are certain forces by whose dynamic presence this invisible body is not only now main- tained, but may continue to be maintained to an indefinite period ; and that there may even now be, and for many centuries have been, those who either consciously or unconsciously employed the knowl- edge of those powers, and thus have continued their existence hereafter? Concerning such problems, no man at the present juncture of human knowledge would dare to dogmatise, but it is well to mark the trend of the discoveries that are being made in this direction.

There are such forces, undoubtedly; and to several of these we have referred in the previous pages. But it would be well to look a little more deeply into this subject So minute are the in- finitesimal particles of which our physical frame is composed, so infinitely graded from the coarse

414 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

and palpable to the moat refined and undiscemible constituency^ that we maj well believe we do not yet know all the powers which inhere in their com- position and sustenance. What we hare already learned, however, inclines us to think that dis- coveries are being made that may soon prove the absolute self-sustenancy of these constituents, which would argue the almost assured possibility of their continued post-mortem organized existence.

We have, the reader will recall, for the sake of convenience, divided the forces that sustain the inner and only vital organisms of ourselves into so- called psychic and vitaL These are but two ex- pressions of the same ultimate energy. We shall therefore seek such knowledge of these two forces as present science affords and see what conclusion we may legitimately draw.

Virchpw, the most eminent histologist of the 19th century asserts that each distinctive original cell- body of the vital organism contains its own peculiar and self-sustaining vital energy. This is a most important initial fact Sut now we may ask, what are the specific sources from which each one of these imits secures its sustenance? We know that food and air, carbon and oxygen, are the two supreme essentials of all life. But we find, also, that these minute organisms enjoy a peculiar individual affinity for specific organic or inorganic substances, which, when they enter the system, are instantly seized and absorbed by them. The cells of the kid- neys, for instance, attract urea from the blood ; the poisonous substance of various diseases, small pox.

PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY 416

scarlet fever, etc., affect certain definite parts and cell-regions of the bodj.^ We witness a most emphatic and dramatic evidence of this tmique cellular-affinity in the work of the white corpuscles of the living blood, whose specific business it is to seize and imprison, till it decay, aU foreign poisonous substance that enters the system. We here discern a hint of ^Nature that when we shall find just that peculiar nutriment for all the cells of the body, which they individually require, we shall be able to maintain such equilibrium as shall result in indefinite existence.

But at this juncture we must call attention to the fact that the more we investigate the laws of longevity as related to dietetics, we discover that the more refined the body grows, the more of deli- cate and the less of coarse food it requires. The nerves become so sensitive in some that meat be- comes a noxious element rather than a food. In others the nerves have threaded out into such in- finitely delicate consistency that a mere milk diet is all they require. Others soon learn to grow fat and wise on two and even one meal a day ; till we find some going the length of surviving well on merely two or three meals a week, while we have the ex- traordinary and distinguished example of one (Louis Comaro), who lived to be one hundred and three years old, and who survived for many years on the yolk of a single egg every twenty-four hours. Again we must recall the remarkable, and most revolutionary experiments of Dr. Tanner and

1" Animals and Plants under Domest./' p. 375.

416 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

George Francis Train, who absolutely refrained from all food for several months, and survived and waxed strong.

The suggestion of these facts is that as our physical system grows more and more refined in na- ture, that is, as less and less it depends on the con- scious external body and adjusts itself to the in- terior, invisible centres of life, the longer will we live. But it also suggests that the actual vital por- tion of the body may depend for its sustenance not nearly so much on external nutriment, as Darwin himself, I believe, hints, as on certain and yet mys- terious sources of nutrition, to which we have not access. May we not justly infer that the inward, invisible, vital body depends more on the invisible atmosphere, on the decomposed and rarefied sub- stances, that exist in their elemental conditions all around us ; and that if it could but have unrestricted access to these nutrient sources it would defy the external body and live even after that has expired t

And is it stretching the imagination too far, or taxing the logical possibilities of scientific data, to assert that it seems more than probable, putting to- gether all the facts referred to in the previous chap- ter, that when the cellular organism of the invisible body is released from the visible external frame- work, it will somehow find a secret avenue to these impalpable nutriments of the atmosphere and thus persist in the unapproachable realm of unseen realities }

Thus far, however, we have been regarding merely the vital soul, so-called; the soul whose

PHYSICAL IMMORTAUTT 417

manifest relationship is physical, howbeit invisible. But we must not forget to pay attention to the other^ the psychic soul, far more subtle, sublimate, and inacessible. Here the psychic forces are at play^ the forces of thought, emotion, will, reflection, and reason. But above all, here abides the mysterious, emperor of the spiritual system which we call tha Consciousness. As each morphological unit, ac- cording to Virchow, has its own individual, self- sustaining vital force, independent of all other elements ; why may we not with equal reason assert that each psychological unit has its own self-sustainn ing psychic force, which insures in its own degree the continuance of the psychic unitf We must again recall the slow evolution of the psychic powers, from the primordial cell and tissue soul, of Haeckel, to the highly organized and complex soul of the complete individual. We must not forget that as; each of these so-called souls evolved it carried witk it its own peculiar psychic powers, grading from mere sensibility or sensitivity, to sensation, from sensation to perception, from perception to represen- tation or consciousness, from representation to re- flection and ratiocination or self-consciousness, it- self built up on the age-developed foundation of a. sub-conscious nature that extends even to the begin- ning of planetary life.

Now it may easily be seen that the durability of existence in each cell, psychically regarded, will be commensurable with the degree, the quantity and the quality, of the psychic force that actuates it. The psychic cells that evidence only sensitivity or

418 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMOKTALITY

irritabilitj will naturally be shorter lived than tboee that evidence perception and intellection; while those that posaess memory^ imagination, the formal power of logic, etc., will enjoy a larger d^ree of persistency than those beneath. When we ascend Co the state of self-consciousness we reach a state where the persistency is far more intense and durable than in any of the inferior psychic condi- tions.

Therefore we may regard it as a law, that in such cells as are highly developed in the consistency of «elf HM>nsciousness we may look for the longer and more intense persistency of organic activity. As the individual develops it argues a larger and' a iiK>re persistent psychic vitality.

But here we meet a di£Sculty. For if each mor- phological unit will continue its soul life in pro- portion to the development of its psychic conscious- ness, then we shall soon have a state of insubordination within the complex body of the cellular commonwealth, which will institute civil war and bombard and disintegrate the vital citadel. This would be true, if it were not for the fact, that as the individuality of the special cells is developed there also develops a commonwealth-consciousness, a central self -consciousness ; and in the highest state of the collective psychic development of the count- less millions of cells that constitute the body, they are held together by the highest attainment of the aelf-consciousness of the individual.

Therefore we may regard it as a law that as the conununal-consciousness of the individual cells do-

PHYSICAL IMMOETALITY 419

Telops the probable oontinuitj of the oell-organisa- tion is emphasused. '^Tbe clearer the eelf-con- sciousnesSy the stronger the aelf-determination in a healthy man, the more independent is his life against all physical influences; while^ on the con- trary^ a decrease in this oneness of his being, in consciousness, makes him more susceptible to these cosmic influences.^' ^

As we have seen, then, the vital soul depends for its strength and functional capacity, as well as for its persistency, on the nutrient substances that sup- ply it. But the psychic soul depends for this state on the accumulating psychic energies that penetrate it, and when it has acquired the supreme potency of self-consciousness, its survival is commensurate with the degree of development of this state. There- fore, if there is a possibility of the survival of the bioplastic or invisible matrix of the physical frame after death, it may be sustained by certain invisible nutrients to us now unknown; and its psychic nature may be continued by the pertinacity of the soul-sustaining self-consciousness of the psychic units.

This perhaps is so far as the present known data of science durst l^mately go with regard to the stupendous problem of the possible after existence of the soul. I am aware that this is an original de- duction ; for I know of no author who has traversed this ground and from the scientific data accumu- lated drawn the conclusions which I have above

1 I>r. Jno. Midu Lenpoldt, quoted in Raue'a ** Pajchology/' p. 326.

420 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

attempted. But I believe any one with an unpreju- diced mind, carefnllj examining the facts and permitting them to lead him to the necesaarily logical deductiona which they intimate, will arrive at the same conclusions as are here set forth.

The observant reader will already have drawn the deduction that if the argument developed in this volume be true, it ultimates not in the possible demonstration of the immortality of the entire human race; but only in a certain portion of it And this is true. The continuous future existence of the entire human race cannot be postulated as ^en a far remote possibility on any scientific data known to the author. Only such of the race as shall have been sufficiently evolved above the lower states of consciousness of animal activity will be able to maintain a self-sustaining individuality.

CHAPTER XXXVni

RECAPITULATION AND CONOITTSION OF

THE ARGUMENT

I am quite aware that until the argument in this Tolnme is supplemented by that to be given subse- qnentlj^ which shall telate to the existence and psychical function of the subconsciousness or the subliminal self, it is incomplete and not wholly convincing. But as the ground is so vast it seemed advisable to divide the discussion into two sections, the one herein set forth, which discusses the nature and scientific interpretation of the Physical basis of the Soul, and one to follow in another volume, which shall traverse the discoveries of modem re- search pertaining to the existence and powers of the Psychic basis of the Soul, or what is now better known as the Unconscious Self. It will be seen from this hint that it is not my purpose to confuse either the physical substance of the soul with its psychical elements or vice versa, nor to substitute the functions of the Soul, as evidenced by its phys- ical foundation or its psychical activities, with what may be apprehended as the Soul per se. This we conceive to be rather the unity of impalpable forces in a super-physical and super-psychical personality, which, resulting from the marvellous machinery Nature has instituted and set in motion for its ex- pression, becomes itself the presiding genius and supreme controlling Force of the instrument The

421

i22 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Soul isy after all, something more, eomethiiig higher and more complete^ than its aelf-ezpression throng^ any agency or inBtmmentalitj.

When we study a piece of intricate mechanism we at once hecome aware of three distinct phases which it suggests. We first recognise the compli- cated arrangement of its numerous parts and their ingenious and somewhat mysterious union and co- operation. This is distinddvely its physical basis and nature. Again, we see that however ingen- iously this machinezy may have been invented and all its marvellous parts logically put together, yet as machineiy it would be dead and worthless, unless something more were added. That something more is the motor power, water, steam, electricity, or what not This we may call the psychical plane of the mechanism, or that plane on which its dynamic powers operate. But we also recognise the fact that all this mystifying conjunction of mutually related parts and co-operating functions could not have been instituted save by the invention and acumen of an intelligence which is manifestly in- woven in it Whether, if we did not know the origin of the mechanism, we should decide that the intelligence inhered in the substances and found the contemplated expression of itself spontaneously in the machinery or was superimposed on it by its inventor, matters not The result is the same : in- telligence is manifest in its complex texture and function, and that intelligence is the supreme ex- pression of its presiding genius.

This we may call, by the way of distinguishment

RECAPITULATION 428

or oontrasty especially the soul of the mechanisiiu It consists of all the various parts of the machinefy and its dynamic functions; but it is all of these (md more.

And so it is when we consider the soul of man, and contrast it with the physical^ vital and psychic forces which inhere in the mechanism of his body.

It is at this point, as has been already suggested in this work, that the biologists who confine them- selves to the medianical theory of life miss the suggestion of natural evolution. It is insisted by them that the mere motion which is exercised be* tween the molecular constituents of physical matter constitutes the complete basis of the psychic fnno* tions of the human organism, such as sensation, thought and consciousness ; and beyond this analysis it is not necessary to go.

That is, given the human organism, thought and consciousness must follow. Professor Dolbear, as an example, strongly intimates this conclusion, in the illustrative parallel he draws between the hu* man organism and an electrical machine.^ He says:

^What then is the distinction between what is called living and dead matter? One is able to trans-> form energy for its maintenance, and the other seema to be wholly inert. ... An analogy may make the description plainer. A maker of physical instru* ments may make what is called a Toepler-Holtz eleo* trical machine. It is composed of wood, and glassE, tinsel and tin foil, and possibly other materials. • • •

1 ** Matter, Ether and Motion/' p. 294.

484 MODERN LIGHT ON DCMOBTALITT

The indindaal parts are shaped in particular waja and these are at last fixed in their appropriate plac^ The machine is done but it has never generated an electric spark and one would discover no electricity about it. • • • If the proper kind of energy is spent upon it, however, it at once becomes electrified and electrical energy may now be got out of it in an indefinite quantity. • • • One might speak of the whole machine as an organism — its wood and brass and glass and its molecular composition, its function depending on each one of these being in its proper place, and nothing more. It can only exercise that function when the proper kind of energy is turned into it. If its molecular composition is disarranged in any of a dozen ways no one is surprised that it no longer responds to the turning of the crank. If the com- plete and perfect machine be called living, then the one with its parts deranged so that it can no longer perform its functions might be called a dead ma- chine.*'

The eminent professor then concludes that "the solution of every ultimate question in biology is to 1)0 found only in physics.*'

But has he not overlooked one factor in the illus- tration? That factor is the intelligent principle i^rhich entered into the original invention and con- struction of the electrical instrument. Given all the physical composition of the machine, " wood, and brass and tinsel and tinfoil," of what avail are these though lying together in close contact, unless they are arranged in such logical and organic ways as is prescribed by an intelligent apprehension of their respective qualities and potential func- tions?

RECAPITULATION 426

After ally ihe snpreishe factor in the oonstruo- tion of the machine is not that ^^ it has the func- tion to transform mechanical energy into elec- tricity/' but the dynamic intelligence which per- vades it and so adapts the component parts of the machine that when energy is applied to it from without the consequent transformation of mechan- ical energy into electricity shall ensue.

This too-often overlooked fact constitutes the crux of the problem of lif e, thought and conscious- ness. It does not confuse the problem one whit, as I have often said, whether we postulate that intelligence is superimposed on the mechanism from without, or that it is a spontaneotia energy which springs from the age-long developed machinery of the human or animal organism. The mere factor of intelligence itself, wherever it may come from, must be dealt with as a reality in Nature, and its due place accorded it when we undertake to solve the problem of existence and the human soul.

The fact that the principle of intelligence, even though it be itself but a product of seonic evolution, operates throughout the universe, from the minut* est atom to the vastest globe, proves that Nature's methods and functions are orderly and logical ; that this intelligence constitutes the supreme factor in the various formations and transformations of manifest phenomena.

Properties, we may admit, are not inherent en- tities; thought, will or even consciousness, may be but the release and reappearance of energy in different forms. All existence and life may, in-

426 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

deed, be bat motion, and in strict accordanoe with scientific facts these statements are correct Never- theless, these facts do not warrant the deduction that mind and all its qualities, soul and its infinite potentialities, are but the results of molecular ac- tivities and nothing more. On the contrary they all prove that unless oi^nic forms were so con* structed, unless there were such logical associatioii of material elements, as to make their mutual co- operation a fit instrument for the expression of psychical activities, no such manifestations would follow.

As already said, the mechanism reveals three dis- tinctive factors, namely, the physical formation and juxtaposition of its intricate parts ; the motor power, which gives functional value to the mechanism; and, the element of intelligence, that makes possible the creation of the machine and its correct utiliza- tion when formed.

The soul of a living being, then, may be construed as the composite of its physical, vital and psychical forces, merged in a supersensible energy or cof^- scious personality, that constitutes the presiding power of the organism. This finds its hi^est ex- pression in the self -consciousness of the individual : the conscious indivisibility of the personal unit.

To present a concrete picture of the argument and conclusions of this work we shall recapitulate, set- ting forth the principles in logical sequence.

First: The universe is the expression of the principle of Unity, manifested in the dual prop- erties of Substance and Energy. The ever recur-

RECAPITULATION 427

ring dual expression confuses the observer who often ill-advisedlj concludes that Nature is there- fore essentially duaL

Second: Substance and Energy are not two separate and distinguishable elements, and cannot be differentiated except in the phases of their phenomena. Substance is a mode of motion or energy ; energy is the active principle of substance. Substance is static energy; energy is dynamic siA- stance*

Matter is that condition of universal energy which reduces impalpable substance to the sensible ap- preciation of living organisms. The apprehension of matter is really but the discernment through the senses of various conditions of energy. These states of energy constitute the infinite vibrations of universal substance. Vibrations which are of such high frequency that they pass beyond the ap- prehension of the human senses constitute the realm of invisible substance. Vibrations that come within the plane of human senses constitute what we call matter, or visible substance. In the last analysis all visible and opaque matter is reducible to invis- ible, transparent substance, or vibrations of energy in a state of high frequency.

Third : Matter is apparently conditioned in two opposite states, known as inert and vital. The inert state of matter refers to such conditions as are established by the forces of heat, light, elec- tricity, etc The vital state to such conditions as are established by what is called the vital force. The presumption that there are many different

428 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

forces ia wrong; for they all emanate from but a Bingle, identical, peraiatent Energy, of whidi the 80-called forces are the various manifestationB. The conception therefore that vital force is wholly dif- ferent to the forces of inert matter is also wrong; for by the law of the conservation of energy and the correlation of forces, there can neither be added to nor taken from the sum total of the energy of the universe anything whatever. Hence the form of energy known as vital force is but a correlate of the well known physical forces everywhere mani- fest in inert matter.

Therefore in the last analysis there is no es- sential difference, save in the manner of expression, between inert and vital matter. In short, all mat- ter is alive, and potentially susc^tible of organic relationship.

Fourth: Living organisms are distinguishable from all others by the activity of that special form of the universal energy known as vital force. Vital force reveals itself in organic matter by the capacity of the latter to grow by the absorption of external substance or by assimilation of food. All living organisms consist of two apparently diverse con- ditions of matter, which have been termed '^ formed or dead'' matter, and "unformed or living'' matter ; or living and non-living matter. This is a chemical condition which is easily discovered. For, " living " matter is characterised by a tendency to move toward that non-living matter which it de- sires to absorb as food, and change into living matter.

EECAPITULATION 429

The human organiem Gonsiflts of the physical, vital, psychical and spiritual forces, all but varia- tions of the One Energy that pervades eternal Substance, and transforms it from a diffuse, ethe- real condition into correlates that constitute an organic body.

Fifth: Only a comparatively small porticm of the organic system is vital, the larger part having been devitalised and constantly growing more so. The vitalising substance known as bioplasm, how- ever, occupies a place in every minutest portion of the tissues and cells of the body; for there is not a space the thousandth part of an inch but what it contains bioplastic substance; and the bioplastic bodies are so small that they measure in diameter no more than the 500th of an inch.^

Sixth: This bioplasm or vital substance is in- visible, colorless, transparent and only detected under the microscope by the use of certain coloring matter. Yet its arrangement is so completely a duplicate of the opaque visible body, of which we are constantly conscious, that could this outer shell be removed, leaving only the inner, invisible body, we would have a rarefied duplication of ourselves, which if it were phosphorescent and should be over- taken in the dark would be a sublimate semblance of our bodies very much in appearance what people

i** There is not one portion of a Uving ^(rowing tissue one five-hundredth of an inch in extent in which Uvuig mat- tear cannot be demonstrated. ... At every period of life, iii eveiy part of the body, separated from one another by a distance fittle more than the one-thousandth of an inch, are little maesee of living matter/' Dr. Diysdale's ** Theory >f Protoplasm," pp. 42, 304.

480 MODEKN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

a ghost to be. Incidentally, we may say here, that in the supplemental work we propose to pub- lish, it will be shown that this bioplastic substance is indeed phosphorescent; from which fact naturally many speculations may be inferred.

Seventh: All the physical forces of the body, that is heat, electricity, chemical a£Bnity, etc, are active in the so-called inert or ^^ formed " matter ; which ceases to possess the quality of growth and is in constant decay, being unable to seize and assimilate nutrient substance. This is the portion of the body that is continually excreting waste matter, which has been utilized and consumed to ashes by the vital force or bioplastic substance. This soH^alled inert and wasted matter, said to be in a state of death, naturally is not annihilated but returns to its cosmic elements. In this way we are constantly sending back to the primal substance from which we came the elements which for a time abode in our organism; but we are doing so by releasing a portion of the dynamic energy whidi temporarily was confined to our organic systems. Thus the law of compensation is satisfied and Na- ture maintains her equilibriimi.

''Yes; fhou shalt die; but these slmighty forces. That meet to form thee, live forevermore; They hold the suns in their eternal courses. And shape the tiny sand-grains on the shore/'

Eighth: But the force that we call vital, and the activities that we call psychic, are exercised in

RECAPITULATION 481

what is known as vital-substance or living-matter. It iSy namely^ the transparent^ invisible replica of our exterior frames, which as we have seen occupies a thin layer of space throughout the continuity of our organism, just exactly like it in configuration, yet ever invisible on the plane of matter, and constitutes the field whlsre our vital and mental faculties are exercised.

Ninth : This invisible duplicate of our exterior frames consists of vital matter that has never known death; it is an immortal substance, having been transmitted to our personal organisms from the first bit of living substance that was formed upon this planet. It consists of deathless plasm, or germinal matter, constituted of millions and mil- lions of infinitesimal cells, each of which has its own independent and self-sustaining vital and mental organism, and has lived myriads of lives and assumed illimitable personalities. Each of us is therefore literally the physical embodiment of millions of individual lives, each of which lived out its own history, and has brought to us the heri- tage of its own ancestral and hereditary influence.

Tenth: However, were each of these lives or autonomies, absolutely independent, we would not be possessed of an identity, a self-sustained person- ality. If we were therefore merely the result of the association of millions of individual cell^lives, animated by independent vital and. psychic forces, we would not i>06ses8 a personal consciousness. But these millions of cell-lives are so associated that

483 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

they oombine into one great, central head, which constitutes their representative unity, their vital and psychic solidarity.

Eleventh: This spiritual unity is physically caused by the mutual association of the numerous groups of specialized and co-operative cells into a comprehensive commonwealth, through the ugency of the great central nervous system of the organism, which holds together, like the presiding officer of a government, the numerous nerve threads and neural branches that spread throughout the entire body. This co-ordinating and centralised nervous system makes possible the unity of the organic life of a living body and the final consummation of a per- sonal self-consciousness.

Twelfth : We have seen that each of these cells as well as the entire combined central system of cells consists of its own independent, though cor- related, vital and psychic forces. Therefore the culminating vital and spiritual energies that exist in any living organism are but the sum total of all the millions of cell-lives, vital, psychic, which have come through countless ages into the final totality.

Thirteenth: We are now perhaps prepared to attempt a definition of the Soul in its generic and specialized sense. We will recognise the fact that whatever the soul may be its nature actually consists of a union of certain distinctive enei^es that enter into the formation of all living organisms. These forces we may call material or physical, vital, psychic and spiritual The physical relate to the correlation of heat, light, electricity, chem*

EECAPITULATION 483

ical aflSnity, etc The vital, relate to those forces that are bent on assimilating non-living substance as food and converting it into vital substance, and again into non-living, devitalised and chemically dissolved waste substance. The psychic relate to the activities of sensation, thought, reflection, con- sciousness, etc* The sum total of all these con- stitute what we may call the soul of any organism, which approaches more and more toward the con- summation of a spiritual self-consciousness as it rises higher and higher in the scale of evolution from moneron to man. The highest evolution of the soulj as we shall soon show, consists of that lofty spiritual consciousness, which tends to free the individual from the limitations of the under-souls evolved from the hereditary cellrlife.

Fourteenth: We may then justly speak of the amceba-soul, the cell-soul, the tissue-soul, the group- soul, and all the other souls up to the culminating personal soul, that comes only in the highest species. But these so-called souls as they ascend in the scale of evolution assume proportionally with their higher evolution more and more development of the vital, psychic and spiritual qualities or attributes. From the meanest moneron to the noblest man there ia only a variation of degrees in soul-life, but not a whit in essence or nature. The moneron has very little indeed of mentality, only so much as can be apprehended by its minute surface when in contact with external matter. Nevertheless germi- nally it already possesses the possibility of man- kind in its palpitating substance. However, aa

484 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

the scale is aaoended the higher forms continiudly throw off more and more of the impedimenta of the lower conditions ; the nervous apparatus grows more and more delicate and refined as the sensibilities and psychic susceptibilities become more exalted. The higher farm alwaye comes into poeeeeaian of eomething more than it has acquired through the heritage of its associated lower forms; eke the child would be precisely like its parents, and there would be no differentiation and consequently no evolution and progress. It is this personal ele- ment, plus the acquired or inherited qualities, that constitutes the individuality of a being and es- pecially connotes the spiritual soul, whidi is to be ranked above the psychic, or vital, or physical, or cellular or any other soul of the organic composite. Glimpses of this consummate self, this self that caps the component units with the larger soul en- compassing all, oft comes to man —

** Sometimes at wakings always unf orwamed, A grace of being finer than himself. That beckons and is gone^ — the larger life.''

Fifteenth: This highly exalted Spiritual Soul, the personal flub above the inherited constituency, is especially evidenced by what we call the Self- consciousness of the individual. We must re- member that the gradual capacity of self-recogni- tion has crawled up through countless ages from the first protoplasmic cell ; from the state of surface irritability, through varying degrees of cellular expansion and nervous involutions ; that is, from in-

BECAPITULATION 485

dependent cells to gronp-oeUs, from gioup-eells to twisted, intertwining ganglia, from medullary ganglia to cranial and cortical ganglia, colminat- ing finally in distinctive brain-formations of grey neural substance which are the especial instrumen- talities of the mind. As this marvellous evoluticm of the complex and intricate mechanism is evolved it is ever accompanied by higher forms of vital, mental and spiritual energies, which conversely are always evidenced in the unf oldment of the more ornate system* But what we are especially to notice is :-^

Sixteenth: That as the mental and spiritual, the vital and pqrchic forces wax strong and grow more important they either cause to be evolved, or by the formation are themselves caused by, more and more refined and complex parts of the organ- ism. The last of these that have been organised late in the ages and only in the brain of man, not in any of the lower animals, is the frontal brain, or the phronema, the especial seat of the power of thought Not until this organ was developed was self -consciousness distinctively possible to the in- dividual, although it ascended gradually from lower states of consciousness made physically possible by the formation of inferior ganglionic centres, from which the higher brain centre in man finally un- folded.

Seventeenth : We have seen, then, that the soul of man is the composite of the physical, vital and psychic forces inherent in the organic solidarity of the infinite lives that constitute his being. We

43e MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

have also seeiD that as he acquires more and more of these forces he eyolves a higher and higher personal- itjy which constitutes the plus, or individual spirit- ual soul, of each man or woman.

But now we are to recall that we have not only found the origin and nature of the soul, but even its physical seat For ages, scientists, philosophers, poets and dreamers have conceived of a place in the human organism where the so-called soul might peacefully abide. All sorts of conjectures were ven- tured, till there is scarcely an organ where some ingenious thinker has not caused it to reside. But now in the light of exact and experimental science we are able with much convincing plausibility to state that the seat of the soul has actually been discovered.

We must first recall that we have defined the soul as a composite of special forces latent or active in the human organism. The soul i$ not defined as a thing nor a tangible, distinctive entity; hut as the organised unit of certain eo-operative forces. But while it is as a whole a composite we may differen- tiate its various natures, as we do those of the in- finitely various cells of the body, by the emphasis it gradually places on certain forces in the higher stages of evolution.

For instance, in the first or lowest stages of life-formation, we border on merely the chem- ical; that point of mergence between catalysis (chemical action) and metabolism (vital-action) where it is impossible to draw the distinction. At that stage the nascent soul may be said to be phys-

KECAPITULATION 487

icaL This soul (namely the activities of the phys- ical forces) continues to exist in the highly organ- ised human system, although most, if not all^ the activities have passed into mere mechanical processes of which the central soul has ceased to take cogni- sance. However once, way down in the lowest stages of the path of psychic progress^ the soul was chiefly occupied with those functions as predominate and supreme.

But each higher formation threw off the lower phases of activity in the immediately preceding state, till gradually the soul practically ceased to be a chemical or physical soul, and became a vital souL Then as the ages came on and passed, the vital soul grew less and less important and sunk more and more out of the consciousness of the organism, till at length the psychic soul, namely the forces of thought and perception, predominated. These commanded attention for ages and ages till higher forces developed, the powers of reflection, reason, ascending from inferior consciousness to superior self-consciousness. And now man rests, the supreme cynosure of the planetary life, crowned with the glory of the lofty and self-controlling self- consciousness of all his attributes. ^^ And it doth not yet appear," what powers may still unfold. It is but reasonable, however, and in perfect keeping with the principles of cosmic evolution to suppose that man has not yet reached the highest culmina- tion of psychic possibilities. This is shown in the fact,

Eighteenth: That the specific physical region

488 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMOETALITY

in which all these marvelloiiB actiyitiea prevail is predsely that fully as marvellous, if not myste- rioiU| realnii we have described as the bioplasmic or essentially vital r^on. It must be manifest that snoh highly powerful forces as those that relate to the energies of the life and the mind, must demand some very plastic substance which shall be amen- able to instant impression and elastic responsive- ness. This is the exact nature of that invisible^ volatile, unstable, ceaselessly flowing and confluent substance which constitutes the vital texture of the organic system. Here all the forces of the soul, such at least as relate to the vital and psychic energies, are completely exercised. The soul as it ascends with the development of the body from a diversified and scattered state of disunited or semi- united life-units into a central and controlling solidarity, constantly works over, if we may so describe it, this plastic vital-substance, which is viscous, spherical and of closely contiguous tex- ture, shaping it into new moulds and evolving from it ever more perfect and delicately adapted organs for its use. Again, we say, it matters not what interpretation may be put on this function ; whether we say that the psychic forces generate the organic texture, or the delicately developing substance generates the function; the practical fact is that tiie organ as far as we can detect is developed parallel with the unfoldment of the psychic capac- ity; but that when the capacity is once developed it continues to operate the organ and thus enhances its capacily.

BECAPITULATION 439

This strange fact in Nature may be easily dis- cerned by all closely observing students. We may admit that the function, whether mechanical, in- stinctive, or consciously intelligent, is the direct result of the delicate organism of the physical system, yet once the oiganised faculty is produced U carries laith it a higher function than what was at first occasioned.

We have seen in the previous pages of this work that, by the laboratory experiments of Prof. Loeb and others, what is called the instinctive capacities of the lower animals, instead of being, as at first it seems, an evidence of conscious intelligence, is merely the result of chemical action. As when the larvBB are laid on the meaty substance of a carcass rather than on the fat; for the larvsB can feed on the meat and not on the fat.

Let us grant that this is all so ; and that all the way up the scale of development we discover that the physical apparatus and the chemical reaction are the immediate causes of what seems to be innate in- stinct. Yet do we not see that, accompanying this physically caused function, there is always the ad- dition of a plus-faculty, which crowns the physically instituted capacity, and remains over to build up the distinctive personality and consciousness of the individual t

It is said, for instance, that when mammals give their mammae to their young, instead of being, as we had so long supposed, the evidence of the lov* ing mother spirit far down the stage of evolution, it is nothing more than the result of the physical

440 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

necessity of relief ^ the mother mammal feeling that it can no longer carry the weight of the milk. All this may be true, but it does not cover the ground.

For, accompanying these basic acts, which may be said to be purely physical and chemical in their nature, there are others that cannot be so accounted for. What, for instance, is the physical or chemical nature of that other spirit of the protect- ing and providing impulse, that comes to the mother mammal, which the natural impulse of selfishness would not permit?

I can best illustrate this by some recent observa- tions I made on some young kittens with their mother cat. It was her first brood; she herself was not much over a year old and was so small we wondered how she could have kittens smaller than herself. She had been a ravenous feeder, and we thought we could never find enough to supply her wants, in addition to her own excellent ability as a mouser to catch whatever prey might be about. She was indeed a little unconscionable gourmand. But she was so gentle and ingratiating in her habits that she won our love at once.

When however, the kittens arrived, a marvellous change came over her. Instead of being agile, ac- tive, frolicsome, and most unladylike in her de- portment, she settled down into a sedate and most dignified demeanor. She became so patient and tender toward her young that no demand they could make upon her but she would grant, how- ever burdensome and wearing. All her natural in- stincts seemed to have changed, except her eager-

EEOAPITULATION 441

ness to seize prey wherever she could get it But in the use she made of this natural instinct there was a suggestion that must be puzzling to the mechanical biologists. The use was this: Where- as formerly she was so ravenous she could not get enough to eat, and would fight to seize what she wanted; now while the same desire to acquire food continued, its appropriation was wholly changed. Now, instead of eating what she got, whether mouse, or bird or mole, she would carry it from no matter how great a distance to her young, call them to her and wait till they had satisfied themselves with so much of it as they wished, before she sweetly and quietly settled down to devour the remainder. This altogether new and human-like quality was evidenced one day in a most emphatic manner. Several days had passed and she had had no raw meat of which she was especially fond. We got some and threw it to her. What followed t Did she seize and devour it ravenously herself? Not at all. She wandered around to her kittens, got them all gnawing on the meat, while she sat by with quiet satisfaction absorbing their delight in making way with the new find. Only when they had gorged their little fat bodies to the full, and could eat no more, leaving indeed only a bone with a few slight snatches of meat on it, did she walk slowly toward it and then settle down to what she had so longed for, a good mouthful herself I

Will the mechanical biologists inform us where, that is from what physical or chemical ori^n, this loving little mother-cat obtained the noble quality

442 MODEBN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

of 8elf-«acrifie6 and self -obliteration with its altru- istic effects t

This is the fact to which I am referring when I insist that whatever may be the source of the psychic function which is manifested in the physical activities that constitute the basis of a soul, the soul itself is something more than all these; it is these plus a spiritual quality that becomes itself the guiding and controlling principle of the entire organism.

Nineteenth: But this pliable and susceptible physical substance, which we have called the seat of the psychic and vital souls, is in itself an immortal 8uh9tance. It has come from a source that never knew death and it will transmit to future genera- tions its own immortal quality. We have also ob- served that as the psychic forces wax stronger and stronger they manufacture this pliable immortal substance into more and more complex and delicate expressions of its nature; till when the highest present formation of vital organisms has been reached in man they have developed in him a certain organ, constituted exclusively of this immortal sub- stance, which is now known as the distinctive organ of thou^t or self-consciousness. But we have also observed that as the soul reaches nearer and nearer to a spiritual solidarity, that is to a personal unity composed of countless individual units, it develops higher and higher states of self-consciousness. In those persons in whom the intensest individuality has been developed, who are less exposed to the dis- sipation of distracting influences than others, and

EECAPITULATION 443

have learned either iiutiiictivelj or by education how to concentrate on their self-centering aouroes of reflection^ the force of Self-Consciousness has pro- portionally developed. The physical organs which constitute the seat of thought and consciousness have therefore naturally likewise developed, that is grown larger by the enlargement of the constit- uent cells, which have become the registry of the ever-growing conception of individuality, and thus Consciousness has itself become a perpetuating capacity of the organic system.

Twentieth: But the substance on which Self- Consciousness continues to exercise its ever conquer- ing influence is itself of an immortal nature. There- fore, should the capacity of Self-Consciousness de- velop to a sufficiently high potency it carries with it the probability that it might, through the instru- mentality of a higher organised immortal substance, defy the dissolution and final decay of death.

As to the argument that this is inconceivable be- cause the vital substance must be constantly fed, and if it has actually passed into invisibility, even though it remain intact at the decay of the exterior frame, it would be impossible to sustain it with food ; we may reply that the demands of nutrient substance for the vital aystem axe even in the present illy informed state of life very variable, some requir- ing but little and some scarcely any at all, as has been proved by numerous experiments. The sug- gestion is certainly not very far-fetched that a body, so refined and delicate as the invisible, uncontami- nated bioplastic framework of the soul, might obtain

444 MODERN LIGHT ON DOiOETALITT

all necessary sustenance out of the impalpable at- mosphere, when we recall that many who are yet imprisoned in this crude clayey exterior survive on exceedingly small rations, from a single slice of bread, or a handful of wheat, or a yellow yolk of a single egg, once in twenty-four hours. However, Twenty-first: There is still an additional physical fact in this connection to be observed. That is, the inherent capacity of self-austenance in the bioplasmic substance. It has been shown by Darwin and Virchow and others that each cell-life is self-sustaining and carries its own chemical con- stituency of self-resuscitating forces. Primary cell-life is not dependent on sexual fertilization for reproduction, nor indeed are the primary forms of sexual life. Reproduction at first is through the instrumentality of the female ovum direct, without the co-operation of the male force. To what ex- tent, therefore, this primitive capacity may con- tinue in the primal substance, each cell of which is naturally deathless and will persist vitally if it is not starved or crushed, is not yet demonstrated and can only be conjectured. The possibility, how- ever, of the self-perpetuation of the bioplastic body, after the vital and immortal substance is freed from the barrier of the external shell of mortified stuff that constitutes the bodily frame, presents a large field for speculation, to say the least. This prob- ability is emphasized by certain recent discoveries. It has been shown that by extracting these vital units from a body dead for several hours, they may be made to develop or prolong their cellular

EECAPITUIATION 446

existence. As Darwin has shown that the entire living organism is made up of the sexualized co- operation of these infinitesimal units^ through whose instinctive imion the organism develops, why, then^ if these vital units can live and propagate without connection with the external body, as ap- parently proven by Dr. Qibier's experiment, may we not safely surmise that the immortal substance is self-sustaining and perpetuating, and thus con- structs the framework for the soul-life that has been generated and developed in the earthly form i The soul-life as we have seen is something more than the composite of all the vital and psychic forces that permeate the body. It contains a spiritual prin- ciple of its own, which is especially manifested in what is known as Sdf -Consciousness. Therefore:

Twenty-second : May we not suppose that if the principle of Self-Consciousness (which is the sus- taining and self-centering energy of the soul, the crowning culmination of all the forces that co- operate in the construction and continuity of a human organism), has been in the individual life developed to a suiBSciently high degree, it may be able to carry over and hold in organic aggregation such highly developed cells as shall continue to function in conscious activity, after the dead ex- terior has dissolved in thin air t

Who shall say that this supreme force of the

Self-Consciousness has not been associated with a

newly organised physical organ, existing perhaps

but germinally in the now developed frontal brain,

'or phronema, and which constitutes the invisible.

446 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

Belf-perpetoating residenoe of the spiritiud fune- tiont This poesibility is encouraged by lecent chemical diacoveries.

Twenty-third: It ia now beginning to be the dream of biologbta and phyaical scientiata that death of the hnman body, aa we know it^ may not be a natural necesaity; and that mankind have died through all theae agea merely becauae they were ignorant of our innate poaaibilitiea. If then the perpetual life of a perpetually dying body be re- garded by Bcientista aa a poaaibility on thia rude aphere of existence, why ahould it be auppoaed to be an absurdity to surmise that a confessedly death- less body, howbeit invisible and inwoven in a visible and naturally decaying body, may develop a consciousness of itself to such a degree aa to be able to actually perpetuate its existence in the in- visible realms to which so-called Death has carried it?

The chemical fact to which we refer as intimat- ing the above conclusion is that of fermentation as the actual force of life, and the resulting possibili- ties.

The discoveries relating to the physical formation of life activities, or so-called biochemistry, are treading so fast upon each other's heels that ahnoet every day some startling revelation is made. Once it was claimed, and apparently proved by Pasteur, that fermentation was the result of Ufe. Now the exact opposite seems to be proved. Carl Snyder, in Harper's Magaaine (November, 1902),

EECAPITULATION 447

asserts that ''the siun of activities we ooUectiyely call life is a series of f ermentatioiis.^'

But what these fermentations (enzymeSy zymoses or diasteses) are, science as yet cannot say. Mr. Snyder tells ns that some German chemists have succeeded in imitating some of the ferment actions by means of solution of very finely divided metals, such as platinum or gold.

This reminds us of a recent report of the dis- covery of an East Indian scientist, who seems to have demonstrated the sensitiveness of metals by tracing their feelings on a carbon paper the same as the feelings or sensations of the nerves in living organisms are traced. By this process he claims to have proved literally that all matter is alive. Another recent discovery of what is called the re- versibility of ferment action has led to some truly startling conclusions. It is found that the ferment which splits up starch into sugar and water will, if its action is continued beyond a certain point, join their components together again to form starcL This fact leads Mr. Snyder to the follow- ing conclusion, which is strongly corroborative of what I have just intimated:

^ It seems to be clear that the condition of growth, whether of a grain of wheat or the germ of a man, is the production, or appearance^ of distinctive en- zymes — ferments — at each stage. Cessation of growth must mean the disappearance of lapse in activ- ity of these special enzymes. What we call growing old seems merely a series of destructive fermentations. It

448 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

is probable that these are present from the hegit^ ning — that throughout all life there is a struggle, so to speak, between the two ; that in some sense, as Pro- fessor Loeb once remarked, death is a physical agent^ the material antithesis of life.

^ If the action of the malt enzymes upon starch is reversible, so is that of the ferments which convert the active tissue, the living protoplasm, into the relatively dead, fatty, or connective, or cartilage, or bone tis- sues — the characteristic, as the great Russian biolo- gist, Metchnikoff, has shown, of advancing years. As the discovery of the constructive ferments gave at last a clue to a complete account of the whole life process, so to those who have closely and reflectively followed the development of biochemistry the discovery of re- TereibUity in fermentation may in time disclose the reversibility of the life process: in more concrete phrase, the arrest of death, the prevention of old age, the preservation of youth**

It seems to me that one of two logical conclusions follow as the necessary corollary of the theses thus enumerated ; or possibly both are Intimate deduc- tions.

First: That when mankind shall have dis- covered the secret laws that appertain to the art of living, to Nature's own marvellous principles of lif e-sustentation, we shall have overcome the mystery of death and shall continue to live and fructify in the no longer mortal bodies we occupy ; or

Second : That there shall be developed in some organisms such a high degree of Self-Consciousness that the physical seat^ in which this spiritual fune- tion resides and operates^ shall be so controlled and

KECAPITULATION 44ft

integrated that it will be endowed with snfficient strength to continue its organic activities after thia mortal coil shall have been shuffled off.

Why, indeed, if it seems scientifically possible that the existing mortal frame may, by the assist- ance of higher knowledge, be perpetuated on thia. planet where death and decay are everywhere: evident, shall we declare it impossible and incon- ceivable, that the very organic seat of the vital, principle, through whose triumphant persistence, ia. the struggle for survival, the existing mortal frame* of man became a possibility, may itself survive and continue to evolve a more highly complex organic nature ? Why is it not more logically sup- posable that that which gives life to that which is now dying may itself persist after the dead is, buried, than to suppose that the now dying shall be made immortal by the persistent indwelling of the naturally deathless body? For the vital, bioplas* mic body is itself innately deathless, and that only dies which it exfoliates.

Why then do not all the data of biology,, physiology, and the cognate natural sciences con- tribute to the necessary conclusion that ^Nature ha& not yet reached her final pause in the logical evolu- tion of her vital forms, and that, indeed, in some- such manner as she already illustrates to us in the^ escape of the winged butterfly from the encasing^ dirysaliS) the deathless, invisible, bioplasmic body within, ihe real seat of the Soul in all its phases, in like manner shall escape, and, if it shall have become conscious of the secret laws that maintain.

4S0 MODEEN LIGHT ON IMMORTAUTT

ilB exifltenoe, shall prolong its vital functions in iimflible realms? I confess that an argument irihidb at first I suggested tentatively and with much , has grown on me in its development, till I draw to the close of these pages it appeals to with convincing force as logical and conclusive. WheHier it will appeal with equal conviction to odier students and tbinkersj, of course time alone tdL

CHAPTEE XXXIX CONCLUDING KEMARKS

We have travelled over a very long and tortuous road of research. Beginning almost with the in- auguration of human thought^ at the dawn of civilization, we have attempted to set forth the actual state of the human mind with reference to the oft illusive dream of the immortality of the souL

We have tried to set down all the facts as they are known to history so far as the author had dis- covered thenu We found that mere historic re- search helped us but little to reach a final conclu- sion as to the truth of a dream so many long to realize. We learned that what seemed to be an innate aspiration of the soul, untaught by Nature and inspired from above, was indeed but the sub- liminal tracing of racial experiences left lingering in the under consciousness of humankind. The aspiration for future existence sprung primarily from disappointment with the present life, and from the vague suggestions that the inexplicable drama of existence afforded the vulgar senses. All this dream fades rapidly in the rising splendor of an age of knowledge and research, when the very bowels of antiquity are upturned to reveal their contents to a curious and peering modernity.

History, then, helps us but little to attain a foundation so sure and deep that it can support a

461

452 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

truth as lofty as that for which humankind so long yearned and by which it so often deceived itself. History has only a disappointing voice when we listen to its dying echoes of man's aspirations in the past.

And Philosophy, "sweet as in Apollo's lute,'* ever alluring, ever disappointing, leads us also but to a vanishing mirage, a phantom fascination. No voice of her sweet resonance reaches us to-day from the porch or academy or grove of ancient Greece, from Egypt's gloomy halls, Rome's stately colon- nades, or even Himalaya's sacred shades, that gives us calm and comforting assurance.

Nor Socrates, nor Plato, nor Aristotle, Pythag- oras, Democritus, Cicero, Seneca, or Epictetus, thrills us with eloquence that does not at last die away in the disappointing reverberation of uncer- tainty and dissatisfaction. Nor do even Bacon, or Kant, or Comte, or Spencer, or any other modem light that bums deathlessly in the temple of philosophy, brighten the gloom or send a hopeful shaft of glory into the Stygian deeps of the Vast Beyond.

Only in Science do we find a possible relief; only in Science that so often an irrational and purblind Faith imagined its enemy and forsooth would neither harbor nor excuse. Science, as such, cares naught for faith of any character; yes, for one faith it has respect, that is the faith that inheres in an hypothesis which for the sake of experiment it may tentatively accept But for that faith which is dogmatic, ignorant and abusive it has neither

CONCLUDIKG BEMARKS 458

regard nor oonoem. Yet out of the deep past of mystery, mysticism and delusion, secluded from the popularity of religion, or the charms of phi- losophy, alone and exclusively has it challenged the Sphinx of the ages, and apparently solved a prob- lem, after its own fashion, which had not else- where even a hope of respectable investigation. Not that Science, to-day, asserts that she has proven or disproven anything concerning the after life of man. With that problem she has had nothing to do; she has indeed tabooed it because it had been entertained in the house of such friends as were only her enemies and confiscators.

Yet, unwittingly, without design, Science has furnished the thinking world with certain data which while doing no violence to logic may be util- ised in formulating a more rational and intelligent conception concerning the possibilities of the after life than man has ever been permitted to entertain in all the past.

We said at the outset of our investigation we would fearlessly follow the truth wherever it mi^t lead us; we have not attempted to shirk or dose the eye to what seemed to be a fact that would op- pose the desired discovery of the race. We had looked only for truth; we believe the truth has led us into an interpretation of a possible future which adds more lustre to the hope of the Here- after than has ever before been rationally burnished upon it. But we are only too well aware that what is known as the authoritative scientific world will in all probability reject the " fine fabric " of logic

464 MODERN LIGHT ON IMMORTALITY

which with possibly too much conceit we may have attempted to weave. Yet we present it for what it is worth waiting only for the judgment of Truth herself.

Written with a sense of conscious sincerity we feel as we look into the heart of Nature for a re- sponsive word of reassurance, something perhaps as Wordsworth when he wrote:

^ The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; Another race hath been and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live^ Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears. To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

INDEX

**AcTB of Apottlesy'' ChiywM-

tom on, 190. Affinity in miero-organums,

296. Alger, Dr. Horatio, quoted,

78, 98, 160. Allen, Grant, on intelligence

in animalB, 282, 283, 284. Amputated limbs, grown

again, 405. ^ Anaealyptus,*' The, quoted,

92, 100. Anazimenes, on nature of

matter, 230. Ancestor worship among

Jews, 141. Ancestor worship among N.

A. Indians, 30. ** Animals and Plants under

Domestication,'' quoted, 415. ** Animal Intelligence," Ro- manes, quoted, 283. "Anthropology," Tyler, quot- ed, 29, 30, 60, 110, 120. Apis, worship of, 90. Aristotle, on human soul, 70;

on substance, 235; on seat

of soul, 272. Arminius, referred to, 227. Atom, the, 230; and corpuscle

compared, 385. ^ Avesta " and immortality,

97.

Bain, Alex, quoted, 70.

Beale, Dr. Lionel, quoted, 299, 339, 340, 341, 342, 348, 350.

Becquerel, Prof., recent ex- periments, 200.

Berkeley, Dr., quoted, 243.

Bible and Iliad, contrasted, 67.

" Bible Myths," Doane, dted, 170.

" Biology," art in Ency. Brit, quoted, 324; Spencer's, quoted, 298.

Bioplasm, as product of min- eral energy, 396, defined by Beale, 340, 341, 342, 403.

'* Bioplasts," 347, 368; per- sistency of, 406.

Body, invisible, 366, ff.

Boltzman, quoted, 264.

BoBcoyitch, referred to, 257.

Bose, Jagandi Chunder, quoted, 264.

Brain and consciousness, 322.

Breath and Soul, 69.

Bridge, between chemical process and psychic life, 279.

Brownlow, ** Slavery and Serfdom in Europe," quot- ed, 48.

Bruno, Giodamo, quoted, 242.

Bachner, quoted, 248, 262, 290, 291.

457

458

INDEX

** Canon of Shun," quoted, 31.

Cams, Dr. Paul, quoted, 400.

Caaindr, Polish poet, quoted, 73.

Cataoomba and future life, 217, 218-219; and story of Resurrection, 212, by With- row, quoted, 213.

Caves, as first sepuldires, 136; of primitiye Jews, 135.

Cell, a machine, 307; life of, independent of organ- ism, 401.

Cells, possess independent source of life, 414.

Centrosome, 306.

Century Idagazine, quoted, 411.

Chaung Tse (Butterfly Chaung), quoted, 38.

Chemical affinity and intelli- genoe, 300.

Chemistry, anticipated by Confucius, 37.

Chinese, and future Ufa, 32, and spiritism, 33; <* Lit- erature," Giles, dted, 40; pui^tory, 30.

"* Chips," cited, 103.

^ Christianity and Greek Philosophy," Crocker, quot- ed, 230.

Christianity and Roman slavery, 47.

Chiysostom, St., on the "Acte," 190.

aarke, ''Ten Great Reli- gions," quoted, 68.

Clemens, Alexandrinus, dted, 165; on "Mysteries," 196.

''Clementine Homilies," quot- ed, 192.

Comme, cited, 121.

Commonwealth-CottsdouanesB,

418. "Comus,** quoted, 113. Conaro, Louis, referred to,

416. Conditional immortality, 420. Conception of immortality and

national idiosyncrasies, 67. Confudus, ideas of soul, re- ligion, etc, 31, 37. Conn, W. H.y quoted, 307, 808,

309, 379. Consdousness and brain proe-

ess, 322; and motion, 391;

and nervous system, 370;

and psychic soul, 417. Cook, Joseph, quoted, 315. " Critical Examination of

Gospel History," dted, 191,

193. Crodcer, Dr. B. F., quoted,

226, 230. Cromlechs, described by Du

Chaillu, 75. Crookes, Prof. William, quot- ed, 249, 252, 253, 365. Crudfizion and Paul, 205. Ciystal formation compared

with cell-growth, 297. " Cyclopedia of Theological

Lit.," quoted, 273.

Dalton, on matter, 251.

Darwin, quoted, 281, 286, 293, 343, 367, 370, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405.

Dastre, Prof., quoted, 259, 260.

Davy, referred to, 253.

Death, and Resurrection of Jesus foreflgured in my- thology, 159 ; coinddent with sex formation, 400 ; not

INDEX

459

a natural neoeBsity, 446, 447, 448; not an original principle in nature, 400; slow process of, 407.

Democritus, on matter, 261.

Descartes, on nund and body, 244; on seat of soul, 273.

^Descent of Man,'' quoted, 90, 286, 287, 203.

Determinant force in proto- plasm, 376.

Diodorus, quoted, 88, 89.

Diogenes, on essence of nature^ 229.

Dionysian mysteries and Paul, 161.

Dictation and longevity, 416.

Doane, ''Bible Myths," quot^ ed, 170.

Dolbear, Prof., quoted, 243, 423.

Donaldson's *' Growth of Brain," quoted, 38L

Draper, Dr. J. W.» quoted, 316.

Druidic religion, 80 ff.

Drummond, on bridge between spiritual and natural, 311.

Diyisdale, Dr., quoted on pro- toplasm, 429.

Dn Chaillu, on cromlechs, 76,

Du Bois-Reymond, quoted, 239; on consciousness, 391.

I)ynamie intelligence, 424.

Eastkb, Jewish, and Resur- rection Day, 216.

ligg cell, 296, and soul, rela- tion, 297.

£;go, definitions of, 272.

Egotism and immortality, 20.

Egyptian divinities, 86; idea of metempsychosis, 69.

Elbe, Louis, on future life, 26, 76.

Electricity and nervous ener- gy, 379, and thought, 392.

Eleusinian mysteries and Plu- tarch, 169; and Pindar, 171 ; Dr. Ramsay on, 168; secret doctrine of, 163; and Paul, 163.

''Emanations" in Parsee re- ligion, 98, 99; Saint Justin on, 100.

Embryology of soul, 368.

Encyclopedia Britannica, re- ferred to, 74, 164^ 168, 324, 333.

Energy and bioplasm, 396; and soul, 313, 388; and spirit, 384; and substance, interaction between, 398, 427.

Essence of Nature, ancient conception, 229.

"Evolution of Immortality," quoted, 27, 30.

" Evolution of Man " (Haeck- el), quoted, 281, 343;

Evolution of primitive belief in future life, 34.

" Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals," quot- ed, 281.

Eye, as the soul, 72.

Fabre, experiments with the sphex, 286.

Farraday, on elemental sub- stance, 263.

Feeling in matter, 802.

Fermentation and life, 447.

Fertilization and procreation, 406.

Fichte, I. H., on nature of

460

INDEX

soul, 277; J. 0*» on aatiiTe

of soul, 277. FijiauB, oonoeption of after

life, 29. Fiake, John, cited, 410. Fleschig, Paul, quoted, 371. Flesh, immorUlity of, 345. "* Folklore and Ethnology,"

Conune, dted, 121. Forbes, James, on ^emana«

tions,** 100; quoted, 280. ''Force and Matter,'' Bfich-

ner, quoted, 248, 282. Fouile, M., dted, 259. Frohschammer, on Sigo, 272. Future Life and Brahmana,

41, 44; Louis Elbe quoted

on, 25, 78; evolution of

primitire belief in, 34. Future stete of soul, 133.

Gabbx, quoted, 81.

** Gemmules," defined by Dar- win, 343, 403.

Qerm-plasm, immortelity of, 345.

"Germ-soul," Haeckel, 358.

Qhoste, primitive fear of, 117.

Qibier, Dr., quoted, 408.

Giles' ''Chinese Literature," quoted, 40.

"Gorgias," quoted, 115.

"Gospel According to Dar* win," quoted, 288.

Gough, A. E., cited, 80.

Grecian belief in individual soul after death, 105.

Grecian conception of future stete of soul, 127.

" Growth of Brain " (Donald- son), quoted, 381.

Guillamme, M. Charles Ed- ward, quoted, 284.

Hadu, Ishter's descent, 9S,

94. Haedcel, quoted, 258, 281, 275,

281, 297, 299, 309, 310, 318^

319, 328, 334, 335, 339, 343,

347, 351, 352, 357, 380, 382,

884, 387, 370, 371, 392, 403. Harper's Magazine, quoted,

388, 447. Hebart, on the E;go, 272. HeraditUB, of Ephesus, on ea-

■enoe of matter, 229. Herodotus, quoted, 77. Hcsiod, on future stete of

soul, 127. Higgins, Godfrey, dted, 92,

101. Hindu conception of metemp- sychosis, 59. Hippocrates, on seat of soul,

272. "Historians' History of the

World," quoted, 50, 51. "History of the Doctrine of

Immortality," quoted, 78,

180. "History of Rationalbm "

(Lecky), quoted, 33, 213,

214.

Horses, how they fight enemy, 287, 288.

Human characteristics of ma- chines, 283.

Hutehinson, Dr. Woods, dted, 288.

Huxley, quoted, 243, 244, 245, 324, 333, 349, 353, 403.

IDEAUSH and Huxley, 245. Idealist, 229. Idioplasms, 403. Hiad, The, and Bible, con- trasted, 87.

INDEX

461

Immanence of God, 227.

Immortal substance, seat of soul, 442.

Immortality and " Avesta/* 97; and Jesus, 45, 46; and egotism, 20; and science, 453, 454.

Immortality, conditional, 420; doctrine of by Paul, 152 ff; of germ-plasm and flesh, 346; of Soul, by Moore, 241 ; physical probability of, 412; Plato's argument for, 236.

Individual consciousness, in Chinese Faith, 38.

Individuality of soul, 105.

Inert matter, 427.

Instinct and intelligence, 293.

*' Intellectual System" (Cud- worth), quoted, 240.

Intelligence and chemical af- flniiy, 300; and instinct, 293; dynamic, 424.

Intuition, product of utility, 290.

Ionic school, on the atom, 230.

Isaiah, on individual salva- tion, 148.

Ishtar's descent to Hades, 93« 94.

James, Prof. William, quoted on the soul, 321.

Jesus, and kingdom of heaven, 175 tt; and immortality, 45, 46; and Persephone, 150; on marriage and di- vorce, 182.

Jewish Encyclopedia, quoted, 142, 149.

Job, quoted, 133, 141, 143, 144.

Journal of Oriental Society, quoted, 41.

Jowett, Dr., quoted, 106.

Judgment Day, origin of con- ception, 149.

Justin, Saint, quoted, 100.

Kaitt on the Ego, 272. Keary, '* Primitive BeUefs,"

cited, 125. Kelvin, Lord, on matter, 257. Kennedy, Prof. Robt Diincan,

quoted, 254. Kingdom of Heaven, meaning

of, 176 ff. Kropatkin, Prince, referred

to, 288, 290. Kussmaul, eited, 319.

Lamb of God, altered to figure of man, 216.

Lao Tse, quoted, 38.

Lecky, "History of Rational- ism," quoted, 33, 213, 214.

Jjegge, on Chinese beliefs, quoted, 33.

Leibnitz, quoted, 257.

Leupoldt, Dr. John Mitchel, quoted, 419.

''light,*' meaning of in "Mysteries" and Gospels, 194.

Life and fermentation, 447; not property of protoplasm, 308; in matter, 328; and mechanism, 808; persist- ency of in cell-conscious- ness, 443; "Life of Mat- ter," quoted, 259; physical basis of, 814.

462

INDEX

Life-oell and oomcionsness, 418 if; and psTehio foroe^ 417} transplanted to lor* eign organinnsy 408.

** Life, Correepondenoe and Ethics of Spinoza," quoted, 274.

Limbs, amputated, grown again, 403.

''Living matter'' de^ed bj Beale, 83; and not liying matter, bridged, 862.

Living oiganisms, how distin- guished, 428.

Lodge, Sir Oliver, quoted, on electrical nature of matter, 253, 257, 386.

Loeb, Dr. Jacques, quoted, 265, 300, 411.

Longevity and Dictation, 415.

*' Love Among Beasts " (Bachner), quoted, 201.

Lucretius, quoted, 257.

Lubbock, Sir John, quoted, 285.

Lundy, Dr. (** Monumental Christianity ") , quoted, 170.

Luther, Martin, referred to^ 227.

MoClintook and Strong^l Encyclo. of Religious lit- erature," quoted, 273.

McConnell, Dr. S. D., quoted, 27, 30.

Machines, human characteris- tics of, 263.

Malays, conception of after life, 29.

Manes, on God as ''light," 104.

Marriage and divorce, Jesus on, 182.

Matter, and mind essentially one, 337; mergence of in mind, 305; as ethereal vi* bration, 252; "Matter, Ether and Motion," quoted, 243, 423; electrical nature of, 386; feeling in, 302; inert, ^7; nature of, an- cient conception, 230, 231, 230, examined Ivy various authors, 257 ff; mind in, 267; living and not living bridged, 352; life in, 328; transmutation of, 254; vi- tol, 427.

Matthews, Prof., referred t^, 265, 41L

Maxwell, Sir William, quoted, 282.

Mechanism and life, 308.

"Memoirs of the Months," quoted, 282.

" Memorabilia " ( X e n o -

phon's), quoted, 233.

" Messenger of Satan," mean- ing of, 188.

Metabolism, 436.

Metchnikoff, referred to, 412.

Metempsychosis, 59; sup- posed origin of, 61; Vol- taire's idea of, 63.

Mill, J. S., letter to Herbert Spencer, 291.

Mind and matter, mergence of, 305; essentially one, 337; mind of child, 319; in animals ( Bttchner ) , 291 ; in matter, 267.

Mithraie " Mysteries," 170.

Modhi, Jinandii, quoted, 97.

Mohl, Hugo, referred to, 338.

Momsen, quoted, 194.

Moners, immortality of, 400.

INDEX

463

Monism, schooLi of referred

to, 268. " Moniat, The," quoted, 161. Monists and Plato, 235. " Monumental Christianity,'*

cited, 170. Moral qualities in animals,

290, 291. More, Henry, quoted, 241. ''Morphological units," 403. Motion and thought process,

393, 394. Mother spirit, whence de- rived, 440. Mount Ranier, poem on, 102,

103. Mtlller, Max, on Brahmanie

faith in future life, 41;

** Psychological Religion,"

quoted, 44. *< Mummies," and return of

soul, 78. « Mutual Aid," Prince Kro-

patkin, referred to, 288. ** Mysteries," Strobeeus on,

162. Mystical union with Christ,

199.

Naegeli, Carl, 259; on mind in matter^ 261, 403.

National idiosyncrasies and conception of immortality, 57.

''Natural Law in Spiritual World," quoted, 311.

Nature, unity of, 269.

Nazarene sect and Paul, 164.

Nerves, mechanism of, 266.

Nervous energy and electrio* ity, 379.

Nervous system and conscious- ness, 370.

''Neuroma," or thought or- gans, 392.

"New Conceptions in Sci- ence," quoted, 251, 261, 267.

Newton, Sir Isaac, on nature of matter, 257.

Nicarauguans, conception of After Life, 29.

Noil, quoted, 348.

Nutrition, mysterious sources of, 416.

O B 6 A IT I o and inorganic, bridged, 311.

Organic life, unity of, 432.

Organisms, living, how distin- guished, 428.

Oiganization, medium of soul life, 355, 356; prophecy of survival, 361, 369.

''Organs; Sensation and Structure of Sensiferous" (Huzl^), 245.

"Oriental Memoirs" (James Forbes), quoted, 279.

Osier, Dr., on science and im- mortality, quoted, 346, 348.

Pabsees, faith explained, 97.

Parthenogenesis, 405.

Paul and doctrine of immor- tality, 155 ff; and Eleusin- ian "mysteries," 163, 171; and Piogenes, 161; and Nazarene sect, 164; and Philo, 166; as a clairvoy- ant, 196; on mystical union with Christ, 199; on "Preaching of the Cross," 203; Journey to Arabia, 161; responsible for doc- trine of Crucifixion and the Resurrection, 205 ff.

464

INDEX

Penephone and JesuB, 154.

Peter, and Paul, cause of quarrel between, 190; as *' Messenger of SaUn/' 189.

Petronius, quoted on Eg^tian divinities, 86.

Pfl^ler, on origination of life, 261.

Philo and Jesus, 211; and Paul, 167.

** Philosophy of India/' Gabbe, quoted, 61; of Upanishads, cited, 61.

Phronema, organ of thought, 880.

** Physiology,'* Draper, quot- ed, 816.

" Piedrahita,"* quoted, 71.

Pindar, on Eleusinian Mys- teries, 171.

'' Plants and Animals Under Domestication " ( Darwin ) , quoted, 343, 367, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405.

•• Plastids," 847.

Plato, and modem Monists, 235; argument for immor- tality, 236; on soul, 107; "^ Republic," quoted, 109, 111, 112, 284; ''Gorgias," quoted, 116.

Plus quality of soul-organ* ization, 865.

Plutarch, on Eleusinian Mys- teries, 169.

Porter, Dr. Noah, "" Intel- lectual System," quoted, 240.

''Preaching of th« Gross," doctrine of, 208.

Pr^er, cited, 819.

Primitive belief in futoie life, 84.

•t

Primitive Beliefs," Keary, cited, 125.

Primitive conception of de- scent from animals, 90; of immortality, 28; of sur^ vival of soul, 85.

Procreation without fertiliza- tion, 405.

Protoplasm, oonic history of, 876; determinant force in, 876; Dr. Beale on, 338, 350; homogeneous, 374.

Psychic, eneigy, 364, 368; life and chemical process, 299; force and life-cell, 417; mat- ter, 364; origin in sex-cells, 298; soul and conscious- ness, 417, 390.

Psychism" by Dr. Gibier, quoted, 408.

** Psychology," by James, cited, 821; Raue, 891, 419.

" Psycho-physiological Studies of Protists," quoted, 299.

Purgatory, Chinese, described,. 89.

Pythagoras, Influence of in Grecian philosophy, 44.

Radiant matter, 249.

Rae, Dr., quoted, referred to- on animid intelligence, 283.

Ramsay, Dr., quoted on Eleusinian Mysteries, 168, 257.

Raue, " Psychology," dted, 891, 419.

"Republic" of Plato quoted, 107, 234.

** Resurrection," and Cata- combs, 212 ; and sepuldires, 76; and Paul, 205; -Day and Jewish Easter, 216;.

3.1

>^ It is'

ggifr &

INDEX

465

Biknce of history conoem- ing, 211.

''Reven des deux Mondes/' quoted, 269.

Reward in Heayen and Paul's ezpoeitioii} 197.

"^ Riddle of the Universe/' Haeckel, quoted, 296, 309, 318, 328, 335, 357, 362, 364, 870, 371.

Rig Veda, The, passages from, 43, 44.

Roman slavery and Chris- tianity, 47.

Romanes lectures. Sir Oliver Lodge, quoted, 253.

Romanes on "Animal Intelli- gence," 283.

Roth, on Vedas in ''Journal of the German Oriental So- ciety," quoted, 41.

St. Augustink, on Immi- nence of God, 227.

''Science and Immortality," Osier, quoted, 346, 348, 453, 454.

Scientific basis of soul's sur- vival, 359.

Scientific method and Soo- rates, 232.

Seat of the soul, 271, 272, 395.

Secret doctrine of Eleusinian Mysteries, 163.

Self-consciousness and persist- ency of life, 418, 443$ bond of cell-life, 418; men- tal achievement in evolu- tion, 436.

"Sensation and Structure of Sensiferous Organs," quot- ed, 245.

" Sensationalist," 229.

Seinial function in cell life origin of death, 400.

" Shade " and soul, 69.

Shelley, quoted, 124.

Shirt of Nessus, legend ex- plained, 123.

Silence of history on the Resurrection, 211.

Slavery as a Christian insti- tution, 54.

Snyder, Carl, quoted, 251, 446, 447.

" Sociology,** by Spencer, quoted, 68, 71.

Socrates and scientific meth- od, 233; founder school of Idealists, 234.

Soul: and "breath," 69; and energy, 313, 384, 398; and himian ^e, 72; and organ- ization, 355, 356, 369; and spirit, 388; and primal cell, relation between, 297 ; Aristotle on, 70; definition of, 321, 322, 436; embryolo- gy of, 388; evolution of, 318 ff; future state of, Grecian conception, 127 ; germ of in primal sub- stance, 270; idea of trans- migration, 77; independent of body, 316; interpreta- tions of, 309, 310; nature of, 240, 277; of mineral and plant, 299; original defini- tion of, 330; Plato on the, 107 ; primitive conception of survival, 35; physical seat of immortal, 442; plus quality of thorough organ*, ization, 355; primitive con- ception of survival of, 35;

466

INDEX

relation to spirit, 305 ; seat of, 272; Bcientiile seat of, 895; BuprenuMj of, 421; surviyal, scientific basis of, 359; Zulu's idea of, 29.

8ouls, hereditary and spirit* ual, 434; gradations of, 433; of new-bom children, Kttssmaul, 319.

Spencer, Herbert, letter to Mill, 291 ; quoted, 298, 374.

fiphex, the, experiments with, 285.

Spinoza, quoted on seat of soul, 274; on uniTersal sub- stance, 334, 335.

Spirit, and energy, 384; and soul, 388; relation to soul, 305; tablet of, Chinese, 34.

Spiritism among Chinese, 33.

Spiritual soul, its place and evolution, 434.

Spontaneous generation, 201.

Stanley on Catacombs and fu- ture life, 217 ff, dted, 148.

Stewart, quoted in Bfichner's ** Force and Matter," 249.

^ Story of Living Machine" (Conn), quoted, 807, 308, 309.

Strobeus, quoted, on Egyptian divinities, 162.

''Studies in European His- tory" (D5llinger), quoted, 54.

Substance, and energy, 427; essentially unitary, 336 ; universal, 334.

*• Supernatural R e 1 i g i o n," quoted, 192, 206.

Survival, primitive conception proof of immortality, 22.

i€

Ta Hio,'' quoted, 37.

Tanner^ Dr., referred to, 415.

TM>ism, compared with Chris- tianity, 32.

** Ten Great Religions " (Clarke), quoted, 58.

TertuUian, on Mithraic Mya- teries, 170.

Thales, of Miletus, on essence of Nature, 229.

"Theistic Conception of the World" (Crocker), quoted, 226.

** Theory of Protoplasm "* (Drysdale), quoted, 429.

Theology and Science, oppo- site conceptions of Nature, 222.

"The Responses of Matter* (Bose), quoted, 264.

"The Senses of Animals," quoted, 285.

"The Soul of Man" (Carus)» quoted, 400.

Thirlwall, on Grecian ghosts, 67.

Thought and Motion, 333; as coemic process, 394; as elec- trical process, 392; organs, or neuroma, 392.

Thiele, C. P., quoted, 94.

Train, Geo. F., ezperimente in fasting, referred to, 416.

Tree-worship cult, 82.

" Triumph of Truth and Doom of Dogma," cited, 215.

Tylor's " Anthropology," cited, 29, 30, 60, 119, 120.

Unity, of organic life, basia of, 432; of Nature, 267.

Utility and moral intuition, 292.