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GLIMPSES
OF GREAT FIELDS

BY

REV. J. A. HALL, A. M.

" This I dare affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy, and
the first entrance into u, doth dispose the opinion to atheism ; but on the other
side, much natural philosophy, and wading deep into it, will bring about men's
minds to religion." — Bacon.

BOSTON

D LOTHROP COMPANY

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS

YOR^

Copyright, 1888

BY

D. LoTHROP Company.

PREFACE.

" Canst thou by searching find out God ? " " If a
man die, shall he live again ? " These were the questions
that already concerned the Chaldean seer, and that ever
since have been uppermost in the minds of thinking
men. They are the questions that every philosophy
and every religion has attempted in some way to
answer. The answer that on the part of Christian
thinkers has from time to time been given to the first
of these questions has been determined by the under-
standing that has been had of its meaning. Those
who have understood Job to be speaking of a compre-
hensive knowledge of God, have answered his question
in the negative. In this sense it is felt that God can-
not be found out by searching. But those who have
understood Job as speaking not of a knowledge com-
prehensive but apprehensive, have usually answered
his question in the affirmative. It is now conceded that
God may be apprehended, that is, that his existence
as the result of searching may be affirmed. This was
the opinion of the great Schelling. He expressed it as
his belief, " that a thoroughly rational perception of
the existence of a personal being as the author and

PREFACE.

ruler of the world, would be the ultimate fruit of a
thorough and comprehensive speculation." In the
opinion of the author of this book this projDhecy of
Schelling's has already been fulfilled. In his humble
judgment the time has already come ^vhen the Chris-
tian idea of God may be said to have been intellectually
apprehended by the thinking mind not only in the
Church, but also in the philosophical world. A few of
the reasons upon which he bases his judgment are
given in the following chapters.

CONTENTS.

Page.

FORCE 9

MIND 57

LIFE 107

THE BRAIN 149

THE SPIRITUAL BODY 191

FORCE.

"I deem it just as absurd and illogical, to affirm that there is
no place for a God in nature, originating and controlling its forces
by his will, as it would be to assert that there is no place in man's
body for his conscious mind." — Dr. W. B. Carpenter.

" The convertibility of the physical forces, the correlation of
these with the vital, and the intimacy of that nexus between mental
and bodily activity, which, explain it as we may, cannot be denied,
all lead upward towards one and the same conclusion, the source
of all power in mind ; and that philosophical conclusion is the
apex of a pyramid, which has it foundation in the primitive in-
stincts of humanity." — Dr. W. B. Carpenter, "Mental Physi-
ology," chap. XX ; p. 696.

GLIMPSES OF GREAT FIELDS

FORCE.

For He spake and it was done, He commanded
and it stood fast. — Psalm xxxiii. 9.

In the early history of Science, the attention
of men was mainly directed to matter. Whence
comes matter ? What are its laws ? What is
matter in itself .? These are the questions with
which men of science were long concerned.

The past century, however, has been character-
ized by the intensity of its efforts to solve two
other problems, namely, What is force.'* What are
its laws ?

In the thorough study of matter it was found
that little could be known as to its nature. It
was found that some of its laws could be deter-
mined, but that matter itself could not be defined.
But while the study of matter, so far as enabling

9

10 . FORCE.

the investigator to affirm what it was, was con-
cerned, proved unavailing", it was not without its
profit ; for the inquiry of the present times in
regard to force, has but sprung out of the inquiry
of the past in regard to matter. The study of
matter revealed the truth that nothing could be
known of it except through its manifestations of
forces ; and thus out of the fruitlessness of invesj
tigation in one direction, has come the more fruit-
ful research in another.

But now, when we consider the universal preva-
lence of force in our world, as well as the functions
which it performs, it seems strange that its suc-
cessful investigation, as well as the formulating of
its laws, should have been deferred until now ; and
yet the progress which has of late been made in
this most interesting department of our knowl-
edge, may at least in some measure atone for the
years of former ignorance.

The task which we have assigned for ourselves
in the present lecture, is, to make ourselves ac-
quainted as far as possible with this invisible
something which we call "force." The first thing
in our study of nature with which we are
impressed is, the universal prevalence of force.

FORCE. 1 1

Here we find it manifesting its presence in
heat, there in light. Here in electricity, there
in chemical affinity. Here in magnetism, and
there again in motion ; for we must not for-
get that these various terms, heat, magnetism,
light, and so forth, which we use when speak-
ing of these various phenomena, are, after all,
but different names for the one thing called force,
and are simply meant to describe the different
modes of its manifestation. Indeed here in the
present universe force is more universally present
even than matter. Unrest everywhere implies the
presence of force, and there is nothing at abso-
lute rest. The rocks that sleep on the mountain-
side are not at rest. So far as appearance goes
they may not have changed position ; they may
seem to have rested in the same position which
they now occupy since the morning of creation,
and yet throughout their structure there has not
been a moment when there has ceased to be move-
ment.

Heated under the sun, or cooled by the passing
cloud, every change in temperature has produced a
molecular change throughout their whole structure.
Slow chemical or electrical actions, even light, or

12 FORCE.

some invisible radiant forces are ever at work, in
some way affecting them ; so that at no moment can
they be said to be at absolute rest. In the ocean
stretching itself in the sunlight and unruffled by
the faintest breeze, mighty forces are at work. In
the ether, here in the atom, or there in the far-
away nebular spaces, forming a world, force is at
work, in one or another of its numerous forms ;
but when we consider force in its relation to our-
selves, in every function of life, it assumes a new
interest.

It is not until we ask ourselves what we might
do and be if force were not, that our real depen-
dence on it, as well as the integral part that it
really plays, begin to appear.

Take, for instance, the force locked up in the
sunbeam. Never was an unweaned child more
dependent on its mother than are we on the sun.
We need heat, we need water, we need food and
clothing. For our highest happiness, commerce
and the various industries must be. But the power
that makes all these possible is to be traced to the
sunbeam.

Coming down through the ether it strikes some-
where the earth ; let us say that it falls on an ex-

FORCE. 13

panded sheet of water, on a pond, a lake, or the
ocean. Here its force, in the form of heat, changes
the particles of water nearest the surface into
steam; and then, lifting these steam atoms aloft
into the atmosphere, bears them away in the lap
of the storm, perhaps beyond the tropics or the
Arctic Circle. By and by these particles, having
been condensed, fall in rain. Rushing down the
hillsides in torrents they fill the channels of the
river that carries our commerce to the sea. Here,
driven by the force of the sun, transformed now
into wind, this commerce is carried abroad to
other nations of the earth, and the ships again
return, laden with the products of other shores.

And thus you see, when we begin to trace the
force of a single sunbeam, how wide our field is,
and how numerous the modes are that force may
assume. Nor is this all. No sooner has our river
reached the sea, bearing on its bosom the products
of the soil, than it is again pumped up by the
force of the sun, falls again in rain, and the force
expended in lifting is now transformed into the
kinetic force of the river, which as it moves on
again to the sea turns the mills and the facto-
ries that grind the meal for our bread, and spin the

14 FORCE.

fabric for our garments. All this does the force
of the sunbeam do for us, as falling quietly, and,
as we perhaps thought, without effect, on the
water. But suppose now that our ray, instead of
falling on the pond, or lake, falls on the land ; its
effects would not be less marked. Here it would
produce vegetation and set in operation all those
hidden springs of life, which, manifested in forms
of beauty or of use, make it possible for us to live.
And so, were we to trace the matter still further,
it would be easy to show that there is not a func-
tion in your life or mine, not a portion of the
organic world around us, not an atom or a world
in the universe, with which force has not some-
thing to do, and in the building up and condition-
ing of which it is not a prominent factor.

But we have now gone far enough to ask the
question, What is force } What is this invisible,
intangible something which now here, now there,
is constantly solving for us the problems of exist-
ence } What can we know about it }

It is characteristic of the thinking mind that it
cannot be satisfied by a study of phenomena sim-
ply. For a time it may interest itself in mere
appearance, in the observance of variety in plie-

FORCE. 15

nomena ; but by and by it ceases to be satisfied
with this, and seeks to know what that may be
that hes back of appearance, the something that
is the cause and condition of appearance. Thus
it was that for a time men were satisfied to res^ard
force simply on the side of its manifestation or
appearance. They scrutinized a body as it fell to
the earth, and studied out the laws of its descent.
They watched the flight of projectiles ; measured
their momentum. They watched the planets as
they sped on in their nightly orbits, watched care-
fully their behavior, and formulated the laws
governing the heavenly worlds. To-day, however,
men are pushing their investigations further ; they
are getting more nearly than hitherto into the holy
of holies of nature, and are studiously endeavoring
to know force in its essence. They ask, What is
this unseen, imponderable, immaterial something,
this ever-present factor called force ? No question
has been of greater interest, nor is it strange
that it should be more easily asked than answered.
As long as force was regarded merely as motion,
or resistance, it was easy to define it. Then it
was sufficient to say that force was the power that
produced motion or resistance. But unfortunately

1 6 FORCE.

for that definition, it has been found that motion
is only one out of many modes of force ; that heat,
Hght, electricity, attraction, chemical affinity and
the like, are also forces just as truly as is motion.
It was found, also, that force had that which re-
lated it more nearly to the realm of mind than to
that of matter, and that in order to explain many
of its operations, an intelligence somewhere had
to be supposed. And thus, as men attained a
truer conception of force, it was found that the
definition that made it simply the power to pro-
duce, or to retard motion, was too narrow, and
that that definition did not define force at all, but
only motion, which is but one of the modes of
force. Nor does the more recent definition, that
makes force a push, pull, or weight, as the case
may be, seem to be more satisfactory. For while
these may be the measures of forces operating in
certain ways, it is clear that neither of these defi-
nitions define force; for force is manifestly that
which lies back of the push, back of the pull ; the
thing that causes the weight or pressure. Between
force, and the effects or manifestations of force,
there must be a wide distinction. *' They differ,
in fact, in precisely the same way as length or

FORCE. 17

breadth differs from superficial area. And this
modern abuse of the word is no more outrageous
alike to science and common sense than would be
the attempt to assign the height of a mountain in
acres."* Indeed, it has come to be admitted as
strongly probable that there is no such thing as
force as it is ordinarily conceived, any more than
there is such a thing as sound or light ; and yet
we must retain the term as designating certain
phenomena which are constantly appearing, just
as we must retain the terms ''sound" and "light,"
though it is clear that they have no existence as
things.

But now when we have come to regard force no
longer as a thing, that is, in the sense in which
matter or substance is a thing, we have gone a
great way in coming to a true conception of what
force is in itself ; and if we have accomplished no
more by this advanced step, we have at least rele-
gated force from the realm of the seen to that of
the unseen, and have come by that much nearer
to determining its origin.

And here we may venture on a definition of
force, which must stand or fall, according as to

* Unseen Universe, p. 104.

1 8 FORCE.

whether it describes and explains the thing defined.
A true definition must always be a description
which manifests as far as possible the nature of
the thing defined ; it must add to our knowledge
of the thing itself. Of every scientific definition
we may demand that it give us some insight, not
alone into the method, but that it also set before
the mind the idea according to which we may
interpret not one, but all the phenomena of a
class.

Conforming, then, to these requirements, what
now is force } Our answer is : Farce is voluntary
energy, directly or indirectly applied. As now
existing in the universe, it is voluntary energy
indirectly operative. But as to its origin, in time
all forces must be traced to voluntary energy,
emanating from a personal will.

Let us now give ourselves to the task of deter-
mining how far our definition will go in explaining
the facts, and whether, in its application to the
laws of force as already worked out, it will stand.

The scientific history" of the last century was
marked by the discovery of two great principles,
known as the ''correlation " and ** conservation "
of forces. In the little town of Wol)urn, Mass.,

FORCE. 19

in the year 1753, was born Benjamin Thomp-
son, afterwards known as " Count Rumford."
One day, in the discharge of his duties in the
Munich arsenal, he observed the large amount
of heat generated in the boring of a brass cannon.
At once he proposed to himself the question,
"Whence comes this heat produced in this me-
chanical operation ? " In order to solve the prob-
lem he entered on a long series of experiments.
Repeating the operation of the Munich arsenal,
he constructed a steel borer, and with this he
operated on a brass cylinder. Fixing the borer
into its position and forcing it down tightly against
the cylinder, which was made to revolve by horse
power, he soon observed the change in tempera-
ture which had before attracted his attention.
The variation of temperature was registered by a
thermometer. With this contrivance he found
that in the space of thirty minutes the tempera-
ture of the cylinder was raised from sixty degrees
to one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit. But
now, what brought about this change in the tem-
perature of the metal under the friction of the
brass with the steel auger } It was clear that
there was a relation between the friction and the

20 FORCE.

amount of heat, but what was that relation, and
how was it to be explained ? It did not take Mr.
Thompson long to perceive that the heat came
out of, or rather was but a transformation of, the
energy expended by the horse. In producing the
revolution of the cylinder, force was expended by
the horse. When the force expended was greater,
as was the case when the friction was increased
by bringing the metals into closer contact, it was
found that the heat generated was greater, and
vice versa. Guided in the proper direction by
these experiments, Rumford was soon led to see
that in the case before him force was changed
into heat ; that the energy expended by the horse
was not lost, as had been supposed, but that it
had all been conserved, and was now stored up
in the form of heat in the brass cylinder. By
further experiments it was easily shown that
this heat could be again changed back into dy-
namic or motive force ; and though Rumford did
not know the mighty bearing of his discovery, yet
to him belongs the honor of first establishing a
principle which has since, in a large measure, rev-
olutionized the world of scientific thought. From
that day to ours the advance has been prodigious.

FORCE. 21

The principle discovered by Rumford, and
worked out to its present perfection by such men
as Joule, Grove, Mayer, Faraday, Helmholtz and
Liebig has now become an established dogma of
science known as the principle of "the correla-
tion and conservation of forces."

At this point it is important that we should
understand precisely what is meant by the phrase
*' correlation and conservation," as well as observe
in how far these principles may lay claim to the
dignity of scientific laws. By the term "conserva-
tion " is meant, in simple language, this : the inde-
structability of any force. We mean by it that no
force is annihilated ; that when it is, as we say,
expended, it has not ceased to be ; not gone out of
existence, but remains as a factor in the universe,
though it may exist in altogether another form.

As no atom of matter can be destroyed, so
neither can any particle of force. Now, it was
long before this fact was recognized ; it was
supposed that when a force was expended, as we
call it, that it ceased from thenceforth to be, and
that if its place was ever again to be filled, it must
be by the creation of some new force.

When, for instance, a projectile shot from a

22 FORCE.

cannon fell to the earth under the law of gravity,
or encountered resistance that destroyed its mo-
tion, it was supposed that the force which it rep-
resented was forever lost. That when the arrow
had reached its goal the force that had propelled
it in its flight was annihilated. It took a long
time to understand that if this were true, some
hidden laboratory in which force is manufactured
must be kept constantly in operation to supply
the place of that which is being constantly ex-
pended. But by and by, however, it came to be
asked what becomes of these forces when they
are, as we say, expended } And may it not indeed
be that they are in some way conserved — stored
up, perhaps, in some other form ? Might it not
be that the heat produced by the contact of the
cannon ball with the resisting medium, and the
heat of the anvil under the repeated strokes of
the blacksmith's hammer be but expended force,
though now in another form.!* Might it not be
that the disturbance of the ether particles, as the
projectile shot through them, is but carried to
other entities, and from them again to still others,
so that no force is really lost }

Well, these questions are now satisfactorily

FORCE. 23

settled. No doctrine of science is more clearly
established than that force, once in existence, is
never annihilated. But when this was established,
the other principle, namely, that of correlation, was
also fixed. It was found that no body could be
heated without some other body being correspond-
ingly cooled ; that one mode of force could not be
produced without exhausting another in an equiva-
lent ratio. To this principle was applied the term
correlation, and by it was meant, that when a
force existed in one mode, it ceased to exist in the
mode immediately preceding, and that the second
mode was generated at the expense of the first,
the third at the expense of the second, and so on.
But, after all, the terms correlation and conser-
vation express facts that are much the same ; for
experience proves that if forces are conserved
they must also be correlated, and if correlated
they must also be conserved. Perhaps it would
be better to say that the one expression states or
refers to the fact, and the other to the method.
And now let us go out into nature, and see
whether we can prove our principles of correla-
tion and conservation to be true.

In speaking of force in relation to its power

24 FORCE.

to do work, it has become necessary to use two
terms : kinetic and potential. A ball, for instance,
projected from a piece of ordnance is capable, as
we say, of performing execution. By that we mean
that its energy is operative energy, or the energy
of motion ; and its power to accomplish work is
measured as half the product of the moving mass
into the square of the velocity. Force as thus
measured is called kinetic energy. But there is
another kind of energy which has also power to
do work if allowed to. This is called, by way of
distinction, potential energy. It is the energy
that the rock possesses when it rests in an ele-
vated position ; for, to demonstrate the presence
of force in this case, you have only to remove
whatever obstruction there my be — let it fall to
the earth — and its latent force is at once given
out. But now observe not alone how energy is
conserved, but also how one kind of energy is
capable of being transformed into another, or, as
it is called, conserved.

Take the illustration given by Stuart and Tait.
A cannon ball is fired upward into the air. Against
the force of gravity, such a ball, as it mounts, will
each moment lose a ])ortion of its velocity, until

FORCE. 25

it finally comes to a standstill ; after which it will
begin to descend. When it is just turning it is
perfectly harmless. ''And if we were stationed
on the top of the cliff to which it had just reached,
we might, without danger, catch it in our arms
and lodge it on the cliff. Its energy has appar-
ently disappeared. Let us, however, see whether
this is really true or not.

" It was fired up at us, let us say, by a foe at
the bottom of the cliff, and the thought occurs to
us to drop it down upon him again, which we do
with success, for he is smashed to pieces by the
ball. In truth, dynamics informs us that such a
ball will strike the ground with a velocity, and
therefore with an energy, precisely equal to that
with which it was originally projected upward.
So likewise a pond of water, unless it has a fall, is
of no use in driving a water-wheel. The head or
the power of descending, gives it a store of dor-
mant energy, which becomes active as the water
descends."

Now observe here the operation of our princi-
ples of correlation and conservation. It would at
first thought have been supposed that when the
cannon ball had reached the top of the cliff, its

26 FORCE.

energy was lost, annihilated ; but not so. The
energy expended in projecting it upward is stored
up, or rather changed into potential energy ; and
all that you need to do to call it out again, is sim-
ply to drop it, and by the time it reaches the earth
its force is the same practically that it was the
moment it left the mouth of the cannon. So with
the water of the pond on the hillside. It would
appear that the force expended by the sun in lift-
ing its water to this elevated position when it was
taken up in the form of vapor, was lost. But
liberate the water ; let it rush down the hillside ;
and as it erodes the soil and sweeps all before it,
you see that the power expended by the sun in
lifting it was not lost, but only stored up in the
form of potential force. And thus in these two
cases you see the law of conservation. But ob-
serve also the operation of our other law, namely,
that of correlation. As the cannon ball was
mounting upward, its kinetic force was being
gradually transformed into potential, until at the
moment the uppermost limit was reached, its
kinetic was entirely transformed into, and existed
alone as potential force. But the moment the
ball began to descend, its potential was again

FORCE. 27

changed back into kinetic ; and thus do wc find
our principle of correlation also operative. But
notice still further the operation of our principles ;
when the ball reaches the earth with the velocity
acquired in the descent, what, then, becomes of
its energy ? Has it not now been lost ? Let us
see : the moment the ball strikes the earth, as
the result of impact, heat is produced.

Just as when the blacksmith strikes his hammer
on the anvil, and the temperature of the metal is
raised as the result of impact, so when our ball
reaches the earth its temperature, as well as that
of the earth on which it falls, is suddenly raised ;
that is, heat is produced. Now we learned when
speaking of the experiment of Rumford, that heat
was proven to be a mode of force ; that it was the
dynamic force of the horse transformed into heat
force in the cylinder. So when the descending
ball impinges on the earth, its kinetic force is
immediately transformed into heat force, and can
be changed back again from heat force into that
of dynamic. It is true that in the case before us
all of the dynamic force of the ball is not trans-
formed into heat, but it is not on that account
lost. The falling ball has influenced the earth —

28 FORCE.

moved it out of its course in a certain ratio, and
in this way has the force been perpetuated.

But to come back to the heat produced at the
moment of contact of the ball with the earth.
Let us see how that, though its energy in a large
measure was transformed into heat, the force of
the descending ball was still conserved. It is uni-
versally known that heat expands metals. If you
take an iron bar, measure its length at a certain
temperature, say of thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit,
and then measure it again after it has been heated
to a temperature say of three hundred degrees
Fahrenheit, it will be found to have expanded.
The force of this expansion is practically unlimited.
If the bar is free to extend itself, its force will of
course not be observed ; but if by some mechani-
cal appliance you should endeavor to resist the
force of expansion, you would get some idea of its
power. And so, if we could by some means
measure the force of expansion caused by the
heat produced by the cannon-ball at the moment
of impact with the earth, we should find that the
dynamic force of expansion in the metal ball, plus
that of the earth, would be practically equal to
the force of the descending ball.

FORCE. 29

Now, see what we have here : First, we have
the kinetic force of the ball as it mounts upward ;
we then have this force changed into an equivalent
of potential force when the ball has reached its
highest limit ; we then have this potential force
changed back again into kinetic force, which at
the moment of impact with the earth, is equal to
the force with which it was originally discharged.
At the moment of impact we have kinetic force
changed into its equivalent of heat for'ce, and
lastly this heat force changed into the force of
expansion, or, what is the same, potential force.
And thus we might go on tracing some particular
force through its various modes back and forth,
hither and thither, until however skeptical we
mi2"ht have been at the start, we should at last
come to a firm faith in the integrity of the prin-
ciples of correlation and conservation.

Now, by the process just pursued in our ex-
amination of motion and of heat, we may also be
convinced that electricity too is but one out of
many modes of force ; a force brought out of some
previously existing mode, and capable of being
resolved into any other force, such as heat, motion,
light, etc. To one who has kept pace with the

so FORCE.

progress of inventions, and taken the care to study
into their methods of appHcation, this will be
apparent. For illuminating purposes, electricity
has now come into practical use. But whence
comes the light that emanates in such dazzling
brilliancy from the carbon point, or the arc, as
the case may be } We say it is produced by the
electric current ; but what produces the current }

Follow one of those wires to its starting-point
and you will be let into the secret. There is a
steam engine ; as its wheels revolve, they com-
municate motion to two bobbins, which, revolving
at a high rate of speed in close proximity to the
poles of a powerful magnet, produce a current of
electricity which with proper mechanical appli-
ances gives us the electric light. Now, in this
operation you have four modes of force ; heat,
motion, electricity and light. The force of heat
in the fuel is first transformed into that of motion ;
that of motion into that of electricity, and this
again into that of light. In each step the correla-
tion appears, and each successive force is but a
transformation of the one that preceded it. Each
force exhausts its predecessor, and takes up into its
own form of energy the energy of its predecessor.

FORCE. 31

Now it may indeed be true that in the succes-
sive steps the conservation of force may not be
clearly demonstrated. That is, the force of elec-
tricity may not be the exact equivalent of the
dynamic force expended by the engine, or the
force of motion may not be the exact equivalent
of the expended heat force ; in other words, we
cannot say, strictly speaking, that one force is
definitely and equivalently convertible into another.
But it must not be forgotten that the initial force
has not been lost even in the slightest degree,
though it may have been dissipated into other
forces of which no account has been taken. Thus,
part of the heat force may have gone out into
the air, part of it into the machinery ; part of the
dynamic force of the steam may have been taken
up in overcoming friction in the machinery, and
so, while the exact equivalent of the original force
may never practically be reached in the transfer-
ence of one mode into that of another, yet if the
dissipated energy invariably incident to the con-
verting of forces could be measured, it would be
found that no particle of force has been lost or
annihilated, though but part of it may have been
converted into the new mode.

32 FORCE.

But we will not dwell longer in illustrating our
principles of correlation and conservation ; we take
it for granted that they already are sufficiently un-
derstood. By the same process it might easily be
shown that our principles apply to the physical
forces of plants and animals, as well as to those
forces of the inorganic world which we have just
considered. But our aim has, perhaps, already
been attained, which was to show that, strictly
speaking, the forces present in the universe are
not of various kinds ; on the contrary what are
commonly regarded as different forces are to be
reckoned as but different modes of the one some-
thing. Just as the player in the theatre may
personate different characters, assume different
costumes, and yet remain the same person, so
may this something we call force assume different
roles, passing from one mode to another without
being lost or annihilated. And thus the store of
force with which the universe was at its beginning
endowed, remains constantly the same, undimin-
ished by the slightest amount, and will go on in
its changes and evolutions, restoring at the last
the precise number and value of the talents origi-
nally intrusted.

FORCE. ZZ

But we come now to the more important phase of
our subject, and to inquire, Whence comes force?
What is its origin ? We can trace it as under its
changing forms it seemingly endeavors to elude
pursuit ; we can prove its identity as here it ap-
pears in heat, there in motion, or here again in
electricity, but can we not go further, and come to
know something as to the nature, or perhaps even
as to the origin of force ? Let us make the at-
tempt. If our principles of conservation and cor-
relation hold, we must not look for the origin of
force in time ; that is, in the present order of things.
For if forces were constantly being produced in
nature, and if, as we have seen, no force once in ex-
istence is annihilated, we should have the anomaly
of constantly increasing force, which would in-
validate our principle of correlation ; for this
principle requires that every new mode of force
shall come from the exhaustion of some force
previously existing. For instance, when motion
is produced from heat, heat-force is simply trans-
formed into that of motion. Prof. Helmholtz, in
his demonstration of the impossibility of per-
petual motion, has clearly proven this to be true,
and, at the same time, shown that one mode of

34 FORCE.

force exists but at the expense of another. If
this were not true, and if new forces could be
created or developed without the exhaustion of
others, then would perpetual motion be possible.
But, if our principle of correlation holds (and not
a single fact can be produced to invalidate it),
then must we look in vain for any new force as
being developed out of the material world.

The modern statement of the principle of cor-
relation is, according to the author of the " Unseen
Universe," briefly this : *' In any system of bodies
whatever, to which no energy is communicated by
external bodies, and which parts with no energy
to external bodies, the sum of the various potential
and kinetic energies remains forever unaltered."

In other words, while one form of energy
becomes changed into another, each change rep-
resents at once a creation of one kind of energy,
and a simultaneous and equal annihilation of an-
other, the total energy present remaining forever
unaltered. It is then at least certain that matter
cannot create force, and that from no laboratory
in which the mere natural is brought into relation,
can force come as a product. Outside, then, of
the material world, must we look for the origin of

FORCE. 35

force. Nor can it be said that force itself is
matter in any of its forms. The fallacy of such
a notion was long since exposed by the illustrious
Mayer, in his work on Force. Force may act
on matter : it may likewise change the form of
the material ; may hold its parts together by co-
hesion, chemical affinity, or gravity ; may operate
with it as the moulder operates with the clay ;
may lift ponderous masses from the earth, and
toss them with the ease that a boy tosses his ball
into the air ; but force ever remains apart and
distinct from that upon which it operates.

But here, as the result of what we have just
been considering, the question may come, Does
force exist apart from matter } Can it be said to
have an existence apart from the material, so that
if matter were to be destroyed, force would not be
destroyed t So intimately are matter and force
united, that it has come to be believed by many
that an essential relation exists between the two ;
a relation so intimate that one could not continue
to be without the other. By some matter has been
defined as the seat or vehicle of energy ; implying
that without matter force could have no existence.
Now, if it be denied that anything exists save

36 FORCE.

that which may be apprehended by the sense,
and as it is apprehended by the sense, then force
may not exist apart from matter. But against
such a limitation of our knowledge the common
consciousness of humanity protests. The fact
that two things, so far as the testimony of the
sense goes, always are found associated, is no
proof that they are essentially one, or that they
cannot exist apart. To insist on such a doc-
trine would not only be to break down the most
inspiring hopes of mankind, but to stultify the
universal consciousness of humanity.

That no one, guided simply by the testimony of
the sense, could say that the soul and the body
are not essentially one, is apparent. We have no
sense faculty that can get between and differen-
tiate the two. We have never seen them sepa-
rated, and we have no empyrical proof that they
can be. But not simply as a revolt from the grim
consequences of admitting their essential unity
and dependence, but, as the necessary outcome of
all true thinking, we have come to regard them as
essentially separate; one as material, the other as
immaterial, though in the i)resent order of things
always found together. And so it comes to be at

FORCE. 37

least thinkable, that force may exist apart from
matter, though so far as experience goes they are
always associated. The oversight on the part of
those who maintain that force may not exist apart
from matter is this : that apart from matter it
cannot be apprehended by the sense ; it is alone
as force operates on matter that it can appeal to
the sense, for by the sense we can know the mate-
rial alone. But we are not left thus to reason
out the possibility of the separate existence of
force. We know that at certain moments its ex-
istence must be separate. From the first we have
spoken of the force of the sun as operating on
the earth. Now what had we there .^ On the one
hand an immense mass of matter called the sun ;
on the other, our globe made up of matter also.
But these immense masses of matter are separated
from each other about ninety-five million of miles.
Associated with the material of the sun are pro-
digious forces. How did these happen to affect our
world } For unquestionably these same forces,
originally existing and operating in the sun, are
now present in the earth in the form of life, heat,
etc. But why are they here .'' There was a
time when they existed in association with the

38 FORCE.

matter of the sun ; they are now associated with
the matter of the earth. Therefore there must
have been a stage in which the force, having left
the sun, had not yet reached the earth ; a period,
the duration of which we cannot estimate, but
which must certainly have been of considerable
duration, when the force was to be associated with
neither the sun nor the earth, but en route. Dur-
ing that period, however long or short, energy
must have existed disassociated from matter, and
had an existence as simple force.

The same is true whenever force passes from
one body to another ; during the time of its pas-
sage it cannot be conceived as associated w^ith
matter as we know matter, but exists as free, pure
force. And so, while apart from matter we may
not be able to demonstrate its presence in any
particular place any more than the beam of light
may be seen apart from the dust particles afloat in
the air of the room, yet it is plain that it must
exist in some form during the period of transition
or it could not reveal itself again in the one after it
had left the other. We are aware that to this it may
be replied, that the ether itself is matter, and hence
force en route is never for a moment really disas-

FORCE. 39

sociated from matter, but co-exists with the matter
particles of the ether. Now we have no disposi-
tion to discuss this point at length. It is clear at
a glance that if the ether is matter, then it is
matter from which everything which we have come
to regard as characteristic of the material, has been
eliminated. A material through which a body like
the earth, surrounded by an atmosphere, at a
velocity of a hundred thousand feet per second,
can pass without resistance, and without even
loosing its atmospheric envelop, is simply incon-
ceivable. And yet no fact in physical astronomy
is more clearly established than that the earth
does this, and that the resistance of the ether to
the earth, in spite of its immense velocity, is in
reality nothing. Moreover, however attenuated
the matter of the ether might be, it cannot be con-
ceived how even a gaseous body like that of a
comet, shooting through the spaces at a rate sur-
passing a thousand times that of a cannon ball,
could pass without being dissipated or even re-
tarded in the slightest degree. For if matter, how-
ever minutely divided, must offer resistance, even
though that resistance may decrease as the subdi-
vision goes on, and matter becomes more and

40 FORCE.

more attenuated, there cannot come a point when
resistance will be zero. If matter be present at all,
the zero point will be arrived at the moment that
all matter as we know it is eliminated, and not a
moment before. But when the zero point is once
reached, and resistance is nothing, then is matter
as we know it necessarily absent.

But we may go further than that. It has come
to be an axiom of Science that energy becomes
more and more marked as the grosser material is
eliminated. You may start, for instance, with
some form of matter, come up from one grade of
the material to another still more subtle, and at
each step, instead of energy growing less as you
recede from the grosser to the more subtle, it
becomes, on the contrary, greater and more active.
Thus if a point could be reached at which mat-
ter would be completely eliminated, that point
would be the point of pure energy. And thus it
becomes no longer a question whether force can
exist apart from matter, as we know matter ; in-
deed it would be more to the point to ask whether
matter can exist apart from force, than to ask
whether force can exist apart from matter. If
force passes from world to world, as it certainly

FORCE. 41

does across immeasurable spaces, then, during the
period of its passage, its existence is an existence
apart from the material. And if it be true, as
Science teaches, that energy in the universe be-
comes greater as we get further and further from
the mere material, and approach nearer and nearer
the immaterial, then it becomes well-nigh certain
that when the realm of the immaterial is once
reached, force instead of ceasing to be, would but
become pure in its character and perfectly active in
its operations. It may therefore be affirmed that
while matter and force in the present order of
things are intimately associated, they are by no
means inseparable ; may even in the present uni-
verse exist apart, and that the origin of force is
not to be found in the material. Back of matter,
prior in time to the history of the present material
universe are we driven in our search for the
origin of force. We must find it, if we find it at
all, in the immaterial, the unseen.

But as matter cannot generate energy, so neither
can life. The idea that life can generate energy
has long been abandoned. Life is energy. To
say, therefore, that energy is produced by life
would be simply to affirm that force is produced

42 FORCE.

by force, and thus to reason in a circle. But now
observe to what we have come. In our search for
the origin of this something called force, we trav-
erse the fields of the material and the living in
vain. Ask where are the secret springs of forces
that are ever playing in the universe, and the
answer that comes from matter is, they are not in
me. Life too answers they are not in me. Even
time answers they are not in me.

And now we may venture to ask. May not that
profound investigator, W. R. Grove, who with keen
insight and unsurpassed skill, pushed his investiga-
tions to the uttermost scientific limits, may he not
have been right, when he said, '' causation is the
will, creation the act of God".? May Carpenter
not have been right when he said, *' The convert-
ibility of the physical forces, the correlation of
these with the vital, and the intimacy of that nexus
between mental and bodily activity, which, explain
it as we may, cannot be denied, all lead upward
towards one and the same conclusion, the source of
all power in mind ; and that philosophical conclu-
sion is the apex of a pyramid which has its foun-
dation in the ])rimitivc instincts of humanity" }

Ikit having looked in vain for the origin of force

FORCE. 43

in the material, having looked in vain for it in the
realm of the living, there yet remains another field
open to our search. Before we come to it, how-
ever, let us note one thing : the better we come to
know force, the more does it assume the nature of
something guided by intelligence; in other words,
the more we know of it the more do we suspect
its voluntary origin. It is gradually coming to be
settled that force as it works unhindered in the
universe is not blind, but that it ever works to a
rational end. It is because this fact has been per-
sistently overlooked, that many of its operations
have gone unexplained. Hitherto it has been de-
manded in scientific discussion that no fact shall
be explained by the introduction of a factor out-
side the merely natural. On this principle many
have worked in their interpretation of the facts of
force, but with the most unsatisfactory results.
Theory after theory has been advanced, but no
single one as yet has been adequate to the task of
explaining all the facts. That force refuses to be
thus interpreted is attested by the fact that, after
a century of theorizing, we have even now no
theory that can explain either the forces of life or
gravity ; the very forces which of all have been

44 FORCE.

most carefully studied. Until Science is willing
to lift her eyes above the merely natural, she must
fail in every attempt to account for the most com-
mon facts of force.

But a new day has already begun to dawn. It
has come to be understood that no hypothesis
built alone on the material can account in any
manner for the operations of vital forces ; and
equally frank is becoming the admission that the
most plausible theory of gravitation hitherto ad-
vanced from the materialistic side, namely, that of
Le Sage, will neither account for the facts, nor is
yet consistent with common sense. The tendency
now in science is to the recognition of an intelli-
gent principle back of and as directing force in
its operations.

In his Outlines of Astronomy, Sir John Her-
schel does not hesitate to say, *' It is reasonable to
regard the force of gravitation as the direct or
indirect result of a consciousness or will exerted
somewhere."

In a recent lecture delivered in New York, by
Professor C. A. Young, the astronomer of Prince-
ton College, you find these words : " How it is
that one atom of matter can attract another atom,

FORCE. 45

no matter how great the distance, no matter what
intervening substances there may be; how it will
act upon it, or at least behave as if it acted on it,
I do not know, I cannot tell. Whether they are
pushed together by means of an intervening ether,
or what is their action, I cannot understand. It
stands with me along with the fact that when I
will that my arm shall rise, it rises. It is inscruta-
ble ; all the explanations that have been given of
it seem to me merely to darken counsel with words
and no meaning. They do not remove the diffi-
culty at all. If I were to say what I really believe,
it would be that the motion of the spheres of the
material universe stand in some such relation to
Him in whom all things exist, the ever-present
and omnipotent God, that the motion of my body
does to my will."

That is a remarkable statement, and all the more
so as coming from one prominent in the ranks
of those who have hitherto protested against the
introduction of a higher factor in explanation
of existing facts. But not less noticeable are
the words of Lionel S. Beale in recrard to the
forces of life. Watching the cell through the tube
of his microscope, with an experience and skill

46 FORCE.

unsurpassed by any investigator in his depart-
ment, and impelled also to account in some way
for the facts observed, these are his words : " Over
and over again, cells have been compared with
laboratories ; but the chemist in these cell labo-
ratories has been ignored; and with machines, the
constructor of which, as well as the engineer and
manager, has been entirely left out of consider-
ation." ''Authority may continue to refuse to ad-
mit, or may deem it expedient to deny that the
living state differs absolutely and entirely from
the non-living condition, but the truth remains
that in the living state of matter, whether it be
the living matter of a growing fungus, or that con-
cerned in mental action, material forces and prop-
erties are somehow governed and controlled, and
in a manner not to be imitated by us, or to be ex-
plained by anything known concerning non-living
matter, while it is incontestable that the moment
the matter ceases to live, its capacity for mani-
festing its ordinary properties returns ; in fact, in
all life we must admit the operation of a power or
infUience far removed from the physical category.
This i)sychical factor has never been explained
away, and is the life of every living thing."

FORCE. 47

And thus it is coming to be admitted that, in
order to explain the two modes of force, namely,
that of gravity and that of life, a higher factor
than the merely physical must be introduced, as
well as that force is somehow affected and con-
trolled by, if it is not indeed the outcome of,
intelligence.

And now the results of these admissions are at
once apparent. If these two modes of force, the
one in the realm of the material, the other in the
realm of the vital, are to be accounted for alone
on the assumption of an underlying intelligent
principle, then may all modes be accounted for in
the same manner. For introduce into the universe
these two modes of energy as initial, admit them
to have come out of intelligence, and then, accord-
ing to the principle of correlation, every mode
may have been evolved from them. Let gravity
be the initial force in the realm of the non-living,
and out of it, as we have learned, will come motion,
heat, electricity, light, and the entire category of
physical forces. Let life in its simplest form be
once introduced, and out of it can come every
vital force operating in the organic world. Fix
your attention on that. If gravity and life have

48 FORCE.

their origin not in the material, but the intelligent ;
if these two forces in the statement of Herschel
are to be traced as the result directly or indirectly
of *' will exerted somewhere" — if that can be
made out ; if there is a force in the universe with
which gravity and life stand correlated, and which
is itself correlated but on the one side, and if that
force is intelligent, then may every mode of force
be traced, in respect of its origin, directly to the
immaterial, the spiritual, the intelligent.

It is therefore more than a presumption that in
the last analysis all force must be resolved into
voluntary energy, and the strength of our propo-
sition, that ''force is voluntary energy directly or
indirectly applied," is made to appear. But we
have one point yet to examine.

We have just seen that force in its operations,
when thoroughly studied, compels the admission
of intelligence back of it ; and that the motions
of the planetary bodies, as well as those of the
cell, have their nearest parallel in the motions of
the human body under the control of will. From
this there is but a step to our proposition. Before
we take it, however, one thing must concern us ;
we must ask, —

FORCE. 49

Does voluntary energy meet the requirements
demanded by the idea of an original force ? It
may be that voluntary energy itself stands in cor-
relation with some previously existing force ; per-
haps when brought under inspection it is not of
itself original. In our search we cannot stop short
of the ultimate.

Now the idea of an original force demands that
such strength shall be underived ; that is, that its
energy shall somehow be self-developed ; impart-
ing, but not receiving, or, in other words, corre-
lated but on the one side. Any force claiming to
be original must fully satisfy these requirements.
And so it is necessary to ask. Have we such a
force in will } Is not its energy to be traced to
some other mode t If these facts can be estab-
lished, then is it orio;inal, ultimate.

In coming to the solution of this question one
thing must not be overlooked, and that is, that
will, as we here know it, is by no means what it
must be in its normal existence. It is a question
whether it is absolutely unconditioned even by its
material environments, and yet we cannot, even
with its present surroundings, speak of it but as
free, and as virtually unconditioned. What will

50 ^ FORCE.

must be, in the person of Him who is the abso-
lutely unconditioned, we do not know, we cannot
tell. It is different at least from ours, and yet,
environed as the human will is, its energy is the
only original energy known to us. Of it alone
can it be said, It speaks, and it is done ; it com-
mands, and it stands fast. Take, if you please,
some piece of mechanism to which motion has
been imparted by human power — let it for ex-
ample be a clock. You may trace the motion of
one part to another, and this to still another,
throughout the entire series, from the pendulum
to the mainspring ; and as you do so, you have
an illustration, on a small scale, of the principles
of correlation and conservation. Begin with the
force farthest removed from the central one — the
mainspring. Start with the motion of the pendu-
lum, as, swinging back and forth, it measures the
flying seconds.

Here you have a force ; but you can, according
to the principle of transmutation of energy, trace
the force expressed in the motion of the pendulum
to the force of the escapement wheel ; this to the
next wheel in the system, and so on till you come
to the spring, the original force in the mechanism.

FORCE. 51

But when you come to the spring you have not
yet reached the Umit. The force exerted by the
spring is but the equivalent of a certain amount
of muscular energy expended in the winding.
Your muscular energy may be traced again to
nerV'Ous force ; this nervous force again to the
displacement or motion of certain particles of
the brain, and, finally, the motion of these brain
particles may be traced to the will. But ob-
serve that you have now reached the ultimate.
Back of the will you cannot go. You cannot take
another step in the regressus ; the will is the
ultimate.

And so it is seen that among the known forces
in the universe, voluntary energy alone can lay
claim to being original. Every other known force
may be traced to some other force preceding, but
back of energy in volition we cannot go.

And now what are the conclusions to which we
are inevitably led } If analogy counts for any-
thing, then may it not be said that in will as we
know it, operating as it does, not alone in con-
trolling, but also in imparting motion to the body,
and through the body — putting into the world
new and original forces — may we not say that

52 FORCE.

in this we have a fact in the light of which the
universe may be interpreted ? And may it not
with certainty be affirmed that every force, from
those that control the atom, on up to those which
drive the planets in their fiery orbits with resist-
less might, are but the emanations of a supreme
will exerted in the beginning ? Aside from energy
in volition, there is no original force known to us.
It alone satisfies the idea, in that it comes from
no pre-existing mode. It alone imparts, but re-
ceives not, the only factor that can put a power
into the endless cycle of forces that shall go on
into the eternities, yet itself remaining outside
the cycle, its energy underived, unconditioned,
ultimate.

And now go out into the universe with this con-
ception of force as coming out of intelligence ;
sit with Herschel, and Newton, and Kepler, and
Tycho Brahe ; watch the mustering squadrons of
suns and moons and stars as, in fiery armor, obedi-
ent to the laws of nature, they march on in grand
review. Sit with Heinrich Frey and Lionel Beale
before the cell as it builds the wondrous fabric of
nerve and fiber and muscle, in conformity to plan,
and nature will no longer be inexplicable. Back

PORCE. S3

of force in planetary and cell movement there will
be found will. Back of will, a Person ; He who
was, and is, and is to come.

" He whose presence bright
All space doth occupy, all motion guide
Unchanged through times all-devastating flight,

Mighty One.
Whom none can comprehend, and none explore,
Who fill'st existence with thyself alone
Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er,
Being whom we call God, and know no more."

MIND.

" The doctrine of the materialists v/as always, even hi my youth,
a cold, heavy, dull and insupportable doctrine to me, and necessa-
rily tending to Atheism. When I had heard with disgust, in the
dissecting rooms, the plan of the physiologist, of the gradual
accretion of matter and its becoming endowed with irritability,
ripening into sensibility, and acquiring such organs as were neces-
sary, by its own inherent forces, and at last rising into intellectual
existence, a walk into the green fields or woods, by the banks of
the river, brought back my feelings from nature to God." — Sir
Humphry Davy. "Consolations in Travel," p. 206.

" We are led by a scientific logic to an unseen, and by scien-
tific analogy to the spirituality of this unseen. In fine, our con-
clusion is, that the visible universe has been developed by an
intelligence resident in the unseen." — *' Unseen Universe," p. 22;?.

MIND.

About the time that Jesus was born in Bethle-
hem of Judea, there flourished an illustrious poet
and philosopher, Titus Carus Lucretius. He came
upon times when corruption had penetrated every
fiber and vein of the national life, when extrava-
gance and lust rioted in the heart of society, and
when the whole system of national and social life
was cancerous to the very core. Amid the out-
rages of that awful epoch life had lost its power
to charm, and suicide, glorified by the stoics, was
recommended as the surest refuge against the vice
and despairing misery of the times. But while
life had become a burden, and death was to be
chosen as a relief from life's misery, " the dread
of something after death " made men cling to an
existence that was scarcely to be endured.

It was but natural that out of such times there
should come a characteristic philosophy, or rather,
that the thinking out of which the disordered state
sprang, should take form in a philosophic system.

57

58 MIND.

To the keen mind of Lucretius, it was obvious that
the dread of the unseen, into which men haunted
by a guilty conscience feared to go, was brought
about by the belief in the gods, "the avenging
deities " that took account of the sinful deeds of
the present life, and who, in a future one, would
certainly institute a reckoning. But since this
fear was what kept men chained to an existence
from which they longed to be free, it became im-
portant that it be dissolved, and that the belief
in the gods, out of which it evidently came, be
demonstrated as groundless.

It was to this task that Lucretius came. He
aimed to show the emptiness of all belief in an
over-intelligence as concerned in the affairs of
the world and men, and ascribed all things to
natural causes. With him the universe found its
explanation in the ''primitive atom." In the rock,
the unyielding iron, and the denser bodies, the
material atoms out of which, according to his sys-
tem, the universe was built, stood in close contact.
In the air, the ether, in the sunlight and gases,
these atoms were less closely related ; and thus
in the universe without, the atom and its relations
were made to account for all, and mind, spirit, the

MIND. 59

gods, could not be. But while with his atoms
which he made the cause and explanation of all
things, Lucretius dissolved the gods, leaving noth-
ing in the outer universe but matter, there still
remained a fact for which he had to account — it
was the fact of mind within. Of a mind without
men could not be so certain. True, they thought
they saw its evidences in the world about them ;
they thought they heard, in seasons of reflection,
the mind without speaking to the mind within, but
of this they had no absolute proof : it might and
it might not be. But of mind within they were
certain ; men knew that they thought. They felt
that thought was not, and could not be, matter,
and so, while the material atom might be made to
account for all that was without, it could not so
well account for that which went on w^ithin — it
could not account for mind out of which thought
sprang. They saw, too, that if all was not matter
within, then all might not be matter without ; and
that if mind lived in man it might live out of
man ; might be back of nature, and thus, after
all, be in the universe. And so Lucretius had to
readjust his system ; had to go further perhaps
than he had at first calculated. In short, he had to

6o MIND.

explain mind as he had explained matter. And
so he said that, like matter, mind was made up of
atoms free to move among each other, and that
the rapidity of mental operations was to be ex-
plained from the fact that the atoms concerned in
thought were round and perfectly smooth, as well
as small in size. And thus with Lucretius matter
was deified that mind might be eliminated. With
him the material was all. Those entities that we
call mind and soul are born and perish with us ;
nothing is but *' body and void."

As might have been predicted, the philosophy
of Lucretius, created as it was for the avowed pur-
pose of breaking down intelligence, thoughtful as
it was in some of its features, came to naught in
the very age in which he lived, A universe with-
out intelligence could not satisfy the reason even
in its simplest processes, and men saw that a sys-
tem from which mind was ignored, or in which it
was made to be but a phenomenon of matter, could
lay no claim to being a true philosophy.

Lucretius, in regard to his theory, might have
learned wisdom from his contemporary : '* Far more
easily will wc be able to build a city in the air, than
on earth to found a city without the gods."

MIND. 6 1

And yet, strange as it may seem, in almost every
age since Lucretius, men have worked upon the
very problem over which he labored in vain ; have
tried to demonstrate the solution of the universe
in terms of matter, and, ignoring mind, have en-
deavored to account for being. It was to this that
Locke, Hume, and afterwards the Mills, by meth-
ods peculiar to each, brought the wealth of their
geniuses. Taken up in our own times by men like
Spencer, Bain and others, with arguments drawn
purely from the physiological field, the popular
philosophy of to-day has come to be decidedly
materialistic in its character. And so, while many
have given themselves no concern as to the method
by which these conclusions have been reached, or
even asked whether they have been legitimately
or illegitimately drawn from the facts, or indeed
whether by such methods the facts themselves are
to be at all explained, yet accept without further
question the conclusions arrived at, and make such
the basis of their mental and moral life.

It is our purpose in the present chapter, so far
as our space will allow, to enter into an adverse
criticism of this current philosophy that practi-
cally denies to mind a place as real being, and,

62 MIND.

instead of asking whether matter and force cannot
be made to account for all phenomena, to enter
into an inquiry as to whether by these alone phe-
nomena can be explained at all, and whether the
true order is not first mind, and then matter ; first
mind as conditioning and determining, then matter
as conditioned and determined. It will be appar-
ent at a glance, that this problem is most inti-
mately connected with the one that we attempted
to solve in the previous chapter. Our aim there
was to show that force was not to be traced to
a material origin, but rather to a mental.

But what if, in the language of the current
philosophy, mind itself is but matter t What if
thought be but the product of the fibers and cells
of the brain — a mere secretion, and nothing more ?
If this be true, if mind be nothing more than mat-
ter in some one of its forms, then must our posi-
tion in regard to the beginning of force be aban-
doned, and all search for its origin becomes futile.
Nor is this all ; ignore mind as separate being by
merging it into matter, and you have destroyed
the possibility of all knowledge. Man is nothing,
then, but an indefinite quantity upon which impres
sions may be made, but which to him have no more

MINI). 63

meaning than the image has to the mirror upon
which it falls. It becomes, therefore, a question of
vital importance whether this gospel of matter, so
characteristic of our times, has its foundation in
fact, and whether matter is in reality all. We shall
therefore enter into our present inquiry not alone
in the interest of the view expressed in relation to
force, but in the interest at once of morality,
religion, philosophy, and, indeed, of every vital
question with which we as men are to be con-
cerned.

Our first task must be to ascertain the precise
position at present held by the more advanced
materialists. Their fundamental principle is, that
nothing exists at all but matter.

That which we call mind is nothing but a func-
tion of the body ; a necessary product of sensuous
perception and the nutritive matter absorbed by
us, but pre-eminently a product of the action of
the cerebral portions of the brain. Alind is a pro-
duct of the brain-development, just as the secre-
tions are the product of the glands. Thought, in
the language of IVIoleschott, consists in the motion
of matter; it is a translocation of the cerebral
substance ; without phosphorus, there can be no

64 MIND.

thought, and consciousness itself is nothing but an
attribute of matter. Man, says Czolbe, is nothing
more than a mosaic figure, made up of different
atoms and mechanically combined in an elaborate
shape. As heat and light are but modes of mo-
tion, so also is nervous activity. And if nervous
activity is but matter in motion, so also is vital
energy ; and if vital energy is but matter, so also
are mental judgments, so also is mind itself. It
comes, therefore, to this: that all mental operations
are but manifestations or expressions of material
changes in the brain ; that man is but a thinking
machine, his mental life entirely determined for
him by conditions over which he has no control.
That this is what we are to understand as the posi-
tion of materialists, is expressed in no uncertain
terms in the correspondence between H. G. Atkin-
son and Harriet Martineau, in which are to be
found sentences like the following: ''Instinct,
passion, thought, are effects of organic substances."
"All causes are material causes; in material condi-
tions I find the origin of all religions, all philoso-
phies, all opinions, all virtues, all spiritual conditions
and influences, in the same manner that I find the
origin of all diseases and of all insanities in mate-

MIND. 65

rial conditions and causes. I am what I am — a
creature of circumstances ; I claim neither merit
nor demerit." " I feel that I am as completely the
result of my nature and impelled to do what I do,
as the needle to point to the pole or the puppet
to move according as the string is pulled."

From these utterances it must be apparent that
mental actions can be nothing more than the
activity of matter ; that mind itself is but matter
conditioned and determined by its environment.
To speak, therefore, of mind, is to speak of that
which is not ; matter is all.

Now before we go on we must stop to see out
of what this materialistic conception of man has
come. For in making up our estimate of any sys-
tem we will always be aided by an inquiry into its
history. If, from any reason, whether of prejudice
or other cause, a full view of the field to be trav-
ersed has not been had, we may at once suspect
that in the system there will appear some essential
defect, which must nullify it as a true interpreta-
tion of that which it attempts to explain. In
looking, therefore, into the history of this concep-
tion, we shall find its error to consist in a one-
sided study of man ; a study of hmi purely from
the physiological side.

66 MIND.

Its advocates are men eminent in the various
departments of physical science. Men who have
looked profoundly into nature, studied out her
laws and methods, but who, according to their
own acknowledgments, have given themselves no
concern in regard to psychology. The dogma of
evolution has taught them to regard man but as a
higher order of the brute, and as such he must be
experimented on, dissected, studied by the same
methods. The microscope, the scalpel and the
electrode are applied. Nerves are traced to their
supposed centres, back again to the muscles ; the
electrode is applied ; certain parts of the brain are
touched, and certain motions follow. Hence it is
assumed that nervous activity, like electricity, is
but a mode of motion ; stands, therefore, in correla-
tion with other forces, and other modes of force
may be changed into it. The conclusion thus has
been arrived at, that if nervous activity is but a
mode of motion, similar in every particular to any
other mode, and governed by precisely the same
laws, then, too, is vital energy ; and if vital energy
is but material, why, then, are not all mental phe-
nomena— why not mind }

And thus for half a century men have been giv-

MIND. 67

ing their attention to the study of brain tissue, in
the hope of discovering the hidden connection
between these tissues and thought, and of laying
open the mysterious processes whereby the nutri-
ent matter taken out of food may be transformed
into energy, and this energy again transformed
into thought. Without getting beyond matter,
they have attempted to solve the problem of mind.
Well, now, with this history back of it, and in
pursuance of these methods, materialism has come,
bearing the marks of its one-sided process. Out
of such a history, such and only such a philoso-
phy could come ; a philosophy dwarfed, half-devel-
oped, uncomprehensive. We have directed atten-
tion to the history and to the method, because
thereby the system is explained as to its one-sided-
ness. Carlyle once said that, " It is not honest
inquiry that makes anarchy, but it is error, insin-
cerity and half-truths that make it." It is so with
philosophy. To be a true system it must take
into account all the facts, deal honestly with them,
and explain them if possible; otherwise it becomes
intolerant and altogether inadequate. Just as the
idealism of Berkeley, which sought to explain all
beins: in terms of mind, broke down because it

68 MIND.

failed to be comprehensive in that it did not ac-
count for phenomena without us, so must this also
be ruled out on the ground that it does not explain
that which is within, or, if you please, because it
fails to be comprehensive.

Mind is ; matter is. Each is to be accounted
for ; neither is to be ignored nor explained in like
terms with the other ; both are revealed in con-
sciousness, and as objects of consciousness are to
be explained.

But before we go on to a criticism of this sys-
tem, let us see precisely what we have to do. It
affirms that nothing is but matter and its forces ;
that all phenomena are to be accounted for as
being the result of the operation of these two
factors. We have, therefore, to show that mere
matter and force cannot be made to account for
the facts as they exist, and that no explanation
but that which gives to mind a place distinct from
matter and as determining matter, can explain
phenomena as they appear, or the facts of con-
sciousness as they exist, for it must not be over-
looked that the facts of our inner experience are
as real as the facts revealed in Tnc sense, and that
mental phenomena are as real as material.

MIND. 69

In determining, therefore, the validity of mate-
rialism, let us consider three propositions :

First, if matter alone is, diversity in human
thought and action, the physical antecedents re-
maining the same, cannot be explained.

Second, if mind is matter and not an existence
in itself, then is there nothing to which phenomena
can appear, and phenomena cannot be interpreted.

Third, if mind exists not apart from matter and
as undetermined by matter, the new in art, litera-
ture or invention could not be. Take, now, the
first proposition :

If matter alone is, diversity in human thought
and action, the physical antecedents remaining the
same, cannot be explained. If there is any one
fact that the study of matter and force has con-
firmed more than another, it is the immutability
of their operations. Certain antecedents always
precede certain consequents, and like effects in-
variably follow like causes. It is the persuasion
that Nature is invariable in her operations, that
makes a science of nature possible. If Nature
were variable, if certain antecedents with unvary-
ing certainty did not precede certain consequents,
no man could know Nature or formulate her laws.

70 MIND.

The sun rises to-day at his appointed place and
time. The moon nightly drives her chariot through
the sky along the same route she has journeyed
since the morning of creation. Indeed, so unvary-
ing is this uniformity that the very moment of her
passage across the sun's disk may be foretold,
the path of her shadow determined ; and when
the predicted moment comes, she has reached
her appointed place in the heavens and proceeds
to drag her train of darkness over continents and
seas in the fulfillment of her promise.

The seasons, in obedience to well-determined
laws, come and go. Day follows night, and night
the day, while creation sings the same song she
sang when the sons of God shouted for joy, and
the morning stars first sang together. Take the
principle of uniformity out of nature, and astron-
omy as a science could not exist. The same is true
of chemistry. The chemist knows that two elements
subject to the same conditions will always unite
with like result ; that certain causes always pro-
duce certain effects and no other, and that, given
the cause, the effect is the same yesterday, to-day
and forever. ]^ut rob the elements with wliich
the chemist deals of this })rinciplc, of uniformity in

MIND. 7 1

action, and chemistry as a science could not be.
The union of two elements to-day would produce
heat, to-morrow cold ; two other elements in union
to-day would produce a liquid, to-morrow a solid.
As much may be said of Nature in whatever de-
partment she is investigated. If Science is, it is
because Nature is uniform ; because matter and
force always act in certain ways, and can act in no
other. But come now to man. In him, according
to the dictum of materialism, nothing exists but
force and matter, acting as they act elsewhere in
the universe. But man is not uniform. Thoughts
and acts are not uniform. Who can predict, if the
antecedents be given, what the thought or the act
may be ? Having once determined how a man will
act under certain circumstances and conditions, no
one can say that under precisely the same con-
ditions he will act as he did before. Indeed, so
variable is human action, under circumstances pre-
cisely identical, that the phrase, " The unex-
pected is what always happens," has passed into a
proverb.

Now this lack of uniformity, the various courses
pursued by different individuals, and, indeed, by
the same individual under circumstances precisely

72 MIND.

similar in character, cannot be explained if in man
nothing exists but matter, and mind the product
of matter is determined and conditioned by
physical antecedents. There must, then, be uni-
formity in human actions ; and the course that
any one will pursue under given circumstances
may be predicted with the same certainty that
effects in the material world may be predicted
when the antecedents are known. But that course
cannot be predicted. And the only satisfactory
explanation of this lack of uniformity in human
action is found in the admission that in man there
resides that which is undetermined and uncon-
ditioned : something that determines a course of
action purely out of itself, and that recognizes no
conditions but those of its own being. Moreover,
in all our attempts to influence or to determine
beforehand a course of action for our fellow men,
we recognize the truth that they have power to
overstep all physical antecedents, and are able to
act as though such antecedents were not existing.
And thus, instead of bringing physical causes alone
to bear, instead, for instance, of studying the in-
fluence of air and diet and the like, we aim to
determine the action, not by the })hysical, but by

MIND. 73

bringing into operation influences as far removed
from the physical as can well be.

And thus do we recognize that the controlling
factors in human action are not matter and force,
but that which has power to determine even these.
And that in man not matter, but mind, is the
controlling factor ; that motives are stronger than
material forces, and that these determine for us a
course of action m the very face of all physical
antecedents. This is the method of all civili-
zation and reform. Not the determining of mind
through matter or material conditions, but the
determining of material conditions through and by
means of mind.

And then, again, if there be nothing of us but
matter under control of the same laws that govern
matter in the world without us, it follows not only
that actions with certain antecedents must be uni-
form— the same physical cause always producing
the same effects in thought and action — but also
that such effects must follow immediately on the
cause. There could never be such a thing as
deferred action. It is because effects follow imme-
diately on the presence of the cause, that we are
able to affirm their connection or trace any certain
effect to a certain definite cause.

74 MIND.

If the two phenomena did not co-exist, no man
could affirm of a certain effect that it sprang from
a certain cause. It is the close relationship in
time of the two phenomena of cause and effect
that enables us to affirm their connection. The
moment the bolt leaps from the cloud, the tree is
shivered into fragments. The moment the elec-
tric current touches the steel, it becomes magne-
tized. The moment I touch, inadvertently, a
heated surface, the nerves concerned in automatic
action cause the proper muscles to contract, and
my hand is withdrawn. And thus it is wherever
matter and force alone enter as factors. Well,
now, grant that thoughts, granl: that actions are
effects of material changes in the substance of the
brain, and that when these changes take place
the thought and the act follow as the necessary
effect of such change, and how, then, are you to
explain deferred action } How are you to explain
the fact that to-day you may determine to do a
certain thing, and yet say to yourself, "■ I will not
do this thing to-day, I will wait until to-morrow " }
How account for the fact that you may even
appoint an hour, and say, '* I will do it then " }
By that time other changes have taken place in

MIND. 75

the brain structure which, on this principle, would
impel you to do the very opposite of that upon
which you had determined. But yet, faithful to
your determination, you do precisely the thing
that you determined to do, and at the precise
moment appointed. Now, we insist upon it that
this could not be, if action and thought were
caused and determined alone by changes in the
brain structure, and followed as the necessary
effect of such changes. If that were the case, the
effect would be immediate, if at all, and we could
no more defer the action than we can defer the
effect of the lightning, or hold back for a defi-
nite period, the explosion of the projectile from
the cannon after the powder has been exploded.
It is therefore evident that if we would consist-
ently explain the facts, we must go beyond matter
and force ; in short, must acknowledge the presence
and potency in man of that which is above matter,
and undetermined by it. If actions, the physical
antecedents of which are the same, may be diverse,
and if the outgrowing of such action may be de-
ferred, it follow^s that the cause of such action lies
not- in matter, but in that which is above matter
and independent of it — that is in mind.

76 MIND.

But come now to the second proposition : If
mind is matter, and not an existence in itself, then
is there nothing to which phenomena can appear,
and phenomena cannot be interpreted.

It was because the truth involved in this propo-
sition was overlooked by Locke, that his system
went asunder. The same truth is alike fatal to
all sensuous philosophy. In every such system
the fact is overlooked that it is mind that makes
phenomena possible, and that until you have mind,
you cannot have a phenomenal world. And yet
men who advocate a purely sensuous philosophy
are fond of talking of impressions and appear-
ances. They speak of mind as **a sheet of blank
paper " ; '* a clean tablet on which impressions are
made by the sense." But the significant truth is
overlooked, that when impressions are made on
the paper or tablet they remain as simple impres-
sions : they do not come to be ideas ; they never
become knowledge. In man impressions become
more than impressions : they become ideas ; in
reflection united in one idea of substance, they
become knowledge.

To the mind, impressions arc not what they are
to the tablet ; the same is true of all phenomena.

MIND. 'J'l

Before appearances can appear, there must be
that to which they appear. We say phenomena
appear. Very well ; but to what do appearances
appear } The reply must be, " They appear to the
mind." But remember, now, that mind, according
to this system, is matter, and matter is phenomena.
Can phenomena appear to phenomena } and if
so, how are we to explain the fact that fleeting
impressions are constructed, put together in an
idea of substance and thus become knowledge ?
Knowledge is not appearance ; knowledge is not
phenomena. Impressions may be made on a
sensitive medium as they are on the sensorium.
Images may be formed on the mirror as they
are on the human retina, but there they remain ;
they never become more than impressions. The
mirror cannot know the object that appears ; the
sensitive medium cannot interpret the impression,
and, in either case, knowledge as such cannot be.
And why .'* The answer is, These are mere mat-
ter, because back of the impression there is noth-
ing to interpret the impression ; nothing that has
power to get out of fleeting impressions knowledge.
There is nothing to which appearances appear. It
is not so in man. Back of the appearance stands

78 MIND.

that to which appearances appear. In him there
is that which has power to reflect upon the impres-
sions as given in the sense, that looks upon the
image as formed upon the retina, that interprets
impression and image, and gets out of them
knowledge. What, then, is this something back
of phenomena that looks upon and interprets
them ? Matter it cannot be. Mind, apart from
matter, it must be. Remove mind and you have
nothing left to which phenomena can appear, for
it is by mind that phenomena are made possible,
and until you have mind as existence, apart from
matter, you cannot have a phenomenal world.
And if even such a world could be, it could not
possibly be known or understood by us.

But again : it is alone as mind stands apart from
matter and as unconditioned by it, that the new
in art, literature or invention becomes possible.
On no other condition is the new possible. Other-
wise, to know one individual of a race or a country
would be to know all. To know what man has
wrought and been would be to know what he may
do and be throughout all ages. See how this is.
The product of mere material agencies is unvari-
ablc ; the characteristic foliage of the tree is ever

MIND. 79

the same ; the flower of the individual plant in
a state of nature is from year to year the same.
This holds whenever mere matter and force are
the factors in the problem, and in that case we
look in vain for the new. The principles of cor-
relation and conservation of forces in the mate-
rial world required that no new force shall come
into action. But put this law relating to force
side by side with that principle upon which all
science rests, and without which no science could
be, namely, that forces act, and must act as they
have always acted hitherto, and what have you }
This: that nothing new can come. Remember,
now, that thought, according to the theory which
we are discussing, and mind out of which thought
comes, are but matter and force operating as they
have always operated, and I ask. How are you to
interpret a Milton or a Shakespeare in literature,
a Locke or a Kant in philosophy, a Raphael or a
Michael Angelo in art, a Mozart in music, or a
Fulton in invention .'' Ignore mind, explain it as
the product of matter, determined and conditioned
by material antecedents, and you have left no room
for progress in history, for genius in art, literature
or invention. The new cannot be, and along the

8o MIND.

groove, worn by the march of ages, humanity must
continue to journey forever.

And so you see it comes to this : tested by
those tests by which every system of philosophy
must be tested, materiaUsm is found wanting. The
first requirement of a true philosophy is that it be
comprehensive. It must explain more than a few
facts. It must be encyclopaedic ; must take into
account the circle of experience — must explain all
that is. In short, it must explain being ; and if it
fails in this it lacks comprehensiveness, and, lacking
this, must be cast aside as empty, false, and utterly
inadequate as a system. Materialism may be able
to explain man on the side on which he finds him-
self linked to the brute ; but on the side by virtue
of which he is truly man, and through which
matter in him is transfigured and glorified, for
that side materialism is unable to account. No
philosophy that denies to mind a place as real
and essential being, undetermined and apart from
matter, can explain the facts as they are or the
universe as it exists. But, it will be asked, is mind
then, absolutely undetermined, and do not mental
consequents follow physical antecedents in such a
relation as that it may be affirmed that thoughts

MIND. 8 1

are determined by material impressions ? Is it
not true that impressions given in the sense are
taken up by the mind and woven by a process
of reflection into ideas ; and is there not such a
necessary connection between the material impres-
sion and the mental idea as that it must be said
that the idea is determined by the impression ?
The answer is this : Whether the idea shall be
determined by the impression alone, depends upon
the mind itself. It goes without saying, that one
and the same material impression excites different
thoughts even in the same individual, to say noth-
ing of the thoughts that such an impression may
arouse in different persons. Similar sounds can-
not be said to produce similar thoughts, or similar
impressions produce similar ideas. The mind may
occupy itself with phenomena, may even so far
lose itself as to seldom rise above the merely
sensuous ; but when this is the case, it is by its
own consent, and not from necessity. From all
determination by the material it has power to
separate itself and to say "■ By these I shall not
be determined." It may shut itself up within
itself, and in its operations shut out all impres-
sions from without and dwell on the purely ideal,

82 MIND.

the transcendental. So, while a clear and some-
times an intimate connection may appear to exist
between physical antecedents and mental conse-
quents, that connection is one, the influence of
which, and the determining power of which, is, at
least in the normal state, marked and limited by
the mind's own choice, and is not a relation of
necessity. But between these two conceptions
there is the widest difference. If that relation is
one of necessity, then is mind absolutely deter-
mined by matter ; is, indeed, lost in matter. But
if the relation is one of choice, as we have just
shown, then mind may or may not be deter-
mined, according as it chooses ; and is therefore
left supreme, self-existent, self-determined.

But what even if thought in the lower fields of
its operations is sometimes influenced by material
impressions } Is mind then to be declared deter-
mined ? Thought is one thing, mind is another.
Thought is an emanation ; mind is the something
that stands back ; the something out of which the
thought emanates. The thought is evanescent ;
the mind is permanent. It is that which stands
back of the thought, brings thought into being,
sits in judgment on it, and hence exists apart
from it.

MIND. 83

And so it comes that no system that ignores
mind as being m itself, no system that aims to
mterpret the imiverse as it is, on the supposition
that mind is conditioned or determined by matter,
can lay claim to being a true philosophy. Every
such system when practically applied can neither
be made to explain the world without nor the world
within us. Even in the writings of those who have
been loudest in the defense of such systems, there
is well-nigh universally to be found a manifest dis-
trust of the doctrine. Few have defended it more
stoutly than John Stuart Mill. But when he found
himself face to face with its logical outcome, when
he perceived that by it man became but a puppet,
an automaton, he practically denied the very prin-
ciples on which his entire system rested. Open
his autobiography and read what he there says :
*' I felt as if I were scientifically proved to be the
helpless slave of antecedent circumstances ; as if
my character and that of all others had been formed
for us by agencies beyond our control and was wholly
out of our power." A little further on you have
this : " I saw that though our character is formed by
circumstances, our own desires can do much to
shape those circumstances. That we have real

84 MIND.

power over the formation of our own characters."
Now let me ask you not to overlook the fact that
that last phrase is fatal to all that Mill had ever
said in defense of his system. If man has power
over the formation of his own character, as he
admits, then it is manifest that that power can
come not out of matter, but out of mind, indepen-
dent, uncontrolled and undetermined by matter.
Well, now, seeing that the order of the materialist,
in which matter is put first, and then mind, cannot
be the true order, we have a right to ask whether
the real order is not directly the reverse, and
whether it be not first mind and then matter.
First mind as unconditioned, then matter as con-
ditioned and controlled by it. If we were per-
mitted to get an answer from the metaphysician,
it would be unqualifiedly in the affirmative.

To the mind that has dealt fairly with the prob-
lem it is no longer a question whether mind
determines matter. It was long ago seen that
without mind nature could not be ; and that until
you have mind you cannot have nature. It was a
saying of Kant's, that mind makes nature. By this
he meant that, looking out on the universe, you
have nothing but a disconnected crowd of impres-

MIND. 8

sions and ideas ; a cosmic mass, but no cosmos.
And that until thought comes in and determines
every object in its relations, nature could not be.
From this we might go on, and, in the name of a
true philosophy, affirm that that which conditions
is before that which is conditioned. That if mind
is, as it must be, the primary element in knowl-
edge, it must also be the primary element in the
universe. For if thought is prior in knowledge, it
must be prior in being. But we are aware that
against this method of reasoning, the charge that
we brought against a purely physiological study
of man has also been urged. It has been urged
that if it is unfair to look at man purely from
the physiological side, it is likewise unfair to study
him from the psychological. And yet that ob-
jection cannot in the present case stand ; for we
are investigating not the physical, but the mental
in man, and are aiming to determine whether this
that we call the mental can be explained in terms
of matter and force. So far as man is material, he
is to be studied by the physical method ; on this
side he may be investigated as nature is investi-
gated. But man has other than material ; he has
also mental being, and as the nature philosopher

86 MIND.

may, with justice, insist that so far as the material
in man is concerned, he be investigated by physical
methods, on the other hand, with equal justice,
we may demand that man as mental shall be
studied, not by the physical, but by the trans-
cendental method. And when so investigated, the
conclusion can only be that at which the transcen-
dental thinkers of Germany long since arrived,
when they put thought as the primary element in
the universe, and reasoned that if thought be prior
in knowledge, it must be prior in being ; and that
by mind nature is determined.

But the same conclusion to which the transcen-
dental thinkers came may also be reached by
another method. And while the materialist, on
account of the intimate relation sometimes found
to exist between physical and mental states, rea-
sons that the mental is determined by the physical,
it will be found nearer to the truth to say, when
such connection is observed to exist, that the
physical has been determined by the mental, and
that, instead of mind being determined by matter,
in all of those cases in which mind is at all con-
cerned, the reverse is true, and matter is deter-
mined by mind. If mind and matter are, if they

MIND. 87

each have an existence, and stand in relation, as
they certainly do in man, then must there be some
point at which they may be said to touch, and the
influence projected upward into the realm of mind
from the material side, or downward into the realm
of the material from the mental side.

Among physiologists, it has come to be univer-
sally recognized that the point at which mind
touches matter in man is located in the brain. It
is maintained that in the brain matter exists in
its most refined and susceptible state. That the
arrangement of its particles is such as to render
the brain susceptible to the most delicate impres-
sions and influences. And while this is affirmed
on the one hand, it is just as stoutly held on the
other that no action under voluntary control can
take place expect as the brain is in some measure
effected ; some change effected on its particles, and
that the act follows as the direct and necessary
effect of such cerebral disturbance. Now see
what we have here. I move my arm. You arise
from your chair and move across the room. How
comes it that these acts are possible "i You are
to account for them, says the materialist, as the
effects of disturbances in the cerebral substance.

8S MIND.

Certain particles of the brain were affected or
disturbed, and the act followed as the direct and
necessary effect of that disturbance. But, I ask,
what caused the disturbance, the motion in these
particles of the brain ? How came they to move ?
When you willed to move your arm, the cause as
affirmed lay in the motion of brain particles. But
do you not perceive that this motion in the brain
particles must also have had its cause ? On the
brain cells some impression must have been
made. But whence came that impression } Did
it come from matter } If so, what was it and how
came it } There is but one answer : it came from
mind. An influence on the cerebral substance
there doubtless was, but it came not from the
realm of matter. Out of mind it came, and was
determined by mind. No man can account for
voluntary action on any other ground. To explain
it is to admit that matter is determined by mind,
and that the determining factor must itself have
been undetermined.

But the operation of mind on matter has not
come to its limit in the narrow field of its action
on the substance of the brain. The horizon of its
operations has by no means been reached when it

MIXD. 89

has touched tlic liidden springs of action resident
in the nerve fibers and cells of the brain.

However it may come, we cannot reason away
the conclusion that, insensibly, the mind makes
the body more and more its organ, until at last it
becomes possible to read the character of the mind
that dwells within, by the fashion that it has given
to the countenance, the eye, the tone of voice,
and the general bearing of the individual. In the
countenance we read the mind. When for any
cause the mind chooses to occupy itself with the
low and groveling, it can do so, but it cannot hide
the thought from the close observer. As a brand
was left on the brow of Cain, that told of what he
had done, so will the degraded mmd leave its mark
on the temple of the body, so that while itself un-
seen, the character of the mind cannot be hid, and
we are able to judge what it is, just as certainly as
we judge the character of the artisan when we look
upon his handiwork.

Whatever objections may be urged against physi-
ognomy, men still preserve their faith in it, and no
individual can free himself from the persuasion
that the countenance by and by becomes the
mirror of the mind. Well has the question been

90 MIND.

asked : '' If physiognomy be without truth, why do
the arts of the painter and the actor steadfastly keep
their hold on mankind, and why are the demands on
these not merely for pathognomonic, but also for
physiognomic representations ? And how can the
desire be explained which has existed from the
earliest ages, and exists to the present day, to see
any person who has been distinguished in any
way whatever, for good or evil ? A desire which
would be altogether meaningless without a belief
in the correspondence of the external appearance
with the inner being."

We cannot but recognize the truth that mental
characteristics stamp the bodily form of man, and
that it is not by chance that a certain mind car-
ries along with it a certain bodily form that is but
the outward expression of itself. But we ask how
is this to be explained except on the supposition
that the body is informed by the indwelling mind,
that it is the mental that determines the material
in something, at least, after the same fashion that
the artist stamps himself unconsciously on the
canvas that he paints or the statue that he chisels .'*
In the words of Mynster : " It must be that the
mind appropriates the body to itself and fashions
it after its own scheme."

MIND. 91

But let us now reverse all this, and with those
who deny to mind this determining power, endeavor
to account for all these facts by making them the
result of physical forces and material causes, and
what have we ? We are then left absolutely with-
out an explanation of the facts of our inner experi-
ence, and all human achievements, civilization and
progress in every department go without an ex-
planation. Take away mind in its determining
power over matter, leave nothing but the mate-
rial and its forces, and you are not only left with-
out an explanation of human progress, civilization
and achievement, but you have destroyed that in
virtue of which and by which these alone can be.

Why is not Greece the same to-day that she was
in the age of her pristine glory t In the signifi-
cant language of Fairbain : " The voices of the gods
are heard in her thunders that wander round the
brow of Olympus ; in the breezes that murmur
through the oaks of Dodona ; the names of the
heroes glorify and immortalize the places where
they fought and fell. There shines on Ther-
mopylae and Salamis, Morgarten and Sempach,
a light that never was on sea or shore, creative of
the inspiration of the poet's dreams." " Leave the

92 MIND.

physical, but change the psychical conditions and
the man is changed. Greece has still her Ionic
heavens, her laughing sea, the crystal air through
which her sons can lightly trip. But neither to
Greek nor Turk does the Periclean age return.
The occasion can never be the cause. Mind, not
matter, must explain the purpose and the progress
of humanity."

Moreover, the history of decline in the individual,
as well as in the national life, proves that the dis-
integration is not brought about by material causes.
The material environment may remain precisely
the same, and the change still go on. The most
degraded races, as well as individuals, have lived
under the most favorable conditions of air, food
and climate, indeed under circumstances in which
every material condition was calculated to bring
about the most healthful examples of body and
soul. And so, on the other hand, the grandest
characters, the purest lives, the noblest in every
department of the human being, have come under
conditions, and in the face of conditions the most
adverse.

It is not the material in any of its modes that
determines what the individual or the race shall be.

MIND. 93

But what then does ? Open history and you will
read the secret. The origin of disintegration
and decline is to be found in the mental, not in
the material conditions. In a false and corrupt
philosophy, in a depraved and sensuous thinking
are to be found the antecedents of decline. This
it has been that has entered like a deadly poison
into the veins of the civil, social, and national life,
and worked out the death of the mighty empires
of the past. From their origin to their end, mate-
rial conditions remained the same. The mental
alone changed.

And so, too, has the history of every upward
movement confirmed the truth that in the eleva-
tion as well as in the degradation of men, the
problems to be solved are not those that have to
do with the material, but with the immaterial, the
mental in man. And so it comes that, in man
and in all that to which man stands in the relation
of cause, mind, not matter, is the determining
factor.

But we have now come face to face with an-
other question. In getting an answer to our first,
namely, the relation of mind to matter in man, we
have awakened another in resrard to the relation

94 MIND.

of mind to matter in the universe ; there is other
matter than that concerned in man. There is
another world than the one within — an external
world, full of organic and inorganic being. What
now is mind's relation to this } Is mind in this
outer, as we have found it to be in the inner,
the determining factor .? In this outer world
is mind also first t If we were allowed to
get our answer from that great transcendental
thinker, Immanuel Kant, it would be this : ''With-
out mind, nature cannot be." '' It is mind that
makes nature ; mind is in the universe as its cause
and condition." If knowledge of the external
world can be, it can be alone as mind in man
stands face to face with mind in nature, alone as
a rational being stands face to face with a rational
world. Thus would Kant have answered our ques-
tion. Looking, therefore, fairly at the problem, we
shall, I think, come to the conclusion, that in the
external world as in the internal, mind must be
the determining factor. That as human products
in art and literature, in invention and the like, are
to be accounted for alone as mind is presupposed,
so, in the external world, phenomena are to be
explained alone on the admission that mind has
been pre-existcnt.

MIND. 95

'' Show us a God in nature ; prove that nature is
his work," says the materiaUst, ''and we will be-
lieve." Now there is a contradiction of terms in
that demand. The materialist has no right to
speak of nature. What is nature } It is the cos-
mos ; the orderly, harmonious system that lies
without us. Nature is the living impersonal,
which is the opposite of mind and idea, but is
exclusively appointed to be the means, organ,
instrument for mind and idea, and in its normal
condition is exclusively determined by these.

But let us take the materialist at what he means,
and let us see in how far his demand may be met
and a God in nature be pointed out. We have
space but for two propositions.

First : It is alone as mind is postulated that the
manifest uniformity of construction in nature in
the organic world can be explained. Stoutly have
men like Herschel, Clerk Maxwell and others,
maintained that this uniformity of construction in
the so-called products of nature, infallibly stamps
them as manufactured articles, not as the products
of irrational agencies, but of an intelligent agent,
designing uniformity of product. Now notice
what led them to this conclusion. They ob-

96 MIND.

served that material agencies produced effects
when left free to operate. That water rounded
pebbles, that it produced soil, and that in one way
and another the irrational agencies of the material
world produced their products. But it was also
observed that these products were characteristic.
They were characteristic in that they lacked uni-
formity ; the pebbles were rounded, but they were
rounded irregularly. The soil was irregular in the
size of its grains, and variable in its constitution.
It was also noticed that wherever the mere blind
forces of matter were left to themselves, that this
lack of uniformity was always the result. But it
was likewise observed that this was not the case
in the products of the organic world. That, on
the contrary, they always appeared as though
fashioned after a pattern. Two ants were more
alike than two pebbles. Two leaves of the same
family, while vastly more complicated in structure,
were more alike than two particles of soil. And
so on all through the organic world. Uniformity
of product was always found to be characteristic
of all nature products.

Then they asked. Mow came this uniformity }
They remembered that between two pieces of

MIND. 97

metal cast in the same mold, tbere was the closest
resemblance. Between two pieces of machinery
made after the same pattern, there was likewise
an intimate resemblance. But in the cases of the
piece of metal and the piece of machinery, the like-
ness was to be accounted for in the fact that they
had been made after a pattern. And so uniformity
of product in the cases cited, pointed back to an in-
telligent agent in whose mind the pattern existed
before it took shape in the metal piece or in the
finished machine.

And thus with these data they came to the only
conclusion to which a fair process of reasoning
could bring them, and said, that if uniformity of
product in the one case proved the priority of
mind in which the pattern was wrought out, so
did it likewise in the other. They reasoned that
uniformity in nature proved a pattern, and that a
pattern proved an intelligence pre-existing and
conditioning matter.

Now let it not be overlooked, that to no other
conclusion, reasoning from the facts, could Her-
schel or Clerk Maxwell have come. In the study
of species there was found to have existed a pat-
tern. And it was equally certain that without

98 MIND.

this pattern to which each individual might be
referred, species could not be differentiated or a
science of the organic world made out. The pat-
tern accounted for the uniformity, the uniformity
proved the pattern.

But if there was a pattern, then mind alone could
have conceived it. And hence back of nature, pre-
existing and conditioning it, mind must have been.
But come now to the second proposition :

Without mind pre-existent and determining mat-
ter, nature could not be interpreted, or a science
of nature formulated.

Let it be understood that there is no argument
formulated by skepticism for the overthrow of
theism, that does not operate with equal force
against itself. Every attempt to demonstrate the
impossibility of a knowledge of God, tells with
equal force against the possibility of all knowl-
edge. The validity of the principle that makes
science possible, makes theology also possible.
If nature can be known, God also can be known.
See how this is. Ask the question, How comes it
that nature can be interpreted, and in virtue of
what is such interpretation possible } Do not
overlook the fact that when the scientist comes

MIND. 99

to nature he comes to it with the conviction that
it is an harmonious whole. That it stands together
as the parts of a system, part rehited to part, and
each interpreting the whole. But suppose that
nature lacked this unity, suppose that one part
sustained no relation to another, and had no pur-
pose in itself. Suppose that one phenomenon
stood to another as the pebbles on the seashore
stand to each other, unconnected, unrelated, and
whence then could Science come or what would be
its foundation } You cannot interpret a confused
mass of pebbles or from such a mass deduce a
science. But you can understand the plant, and
out of a study of it you can deduce a science.

You cannot interpret a mass of soil, but you
can interpret the insect, and when you have studied
it, and observed the relation of one of its parts to
another, you have what we call science. But how
comes this t There is and can be but one answer ;
there is thought in the one, there is no thought
in the other. Matter in itself cannot be inter-
preted ; cannot be known. The more it has been
studied the more positive has become the convic-
tion that we must remain ignorant of it. But let
matter be lifted out of its normal condition ; let it

147766

I oo MIND.

be transfigured and inwrought by mind ; let parts
be brought into relation, then do we know not,
indeed, the matter, but the relation, the schema,
and this it is that makes knowledge. Let the
base matter of gases and minerals in the labora-
tory of the plant, take form and relation in
root, and branch, and leaf, fiber, and flower ; let
the unrelated matter once come into relation as
it does in the anatomy of the insect ; let base mat-
ter come into relation in molecules or in worlds,
and then does knowledge become possible, and
sciences are built up. But, observe in what this
knowledge really consists. It is not the mat-
ter, though now in its organized forms, that you
know ; it is the schema, the relations, the mind
evidenced in these relationships that becomes an
object of knowledge. This it is that makes science,
and this alone. It is thought in nature that makes
nature knowable. Except as nature has been in-
formed by mind, it cannot be known. To be ration-
ally apprehended, nature must first be rational. To
be known by mind, it must first embody mind and
envisage that by virtue of which it alone can be
known.

Enter the workshop of the mechanic. Me is

MTND. lOI

shaping the various parts of a machine, the plan
of which he has worked out in his mind. Around
you are curiously wrought pieces of wopd, and iron,
and steel ; but they are as yet disconnected, un-
related ; but a mass of material. Can yet get even
from these already fashioned pieces, anything that
you would call knowledge 1 Can you interpret
them } The mechanic may, for he knows the
relation of part to part. But this relation does
not appear to you, and hence you cannot interpret
them. But let the parts be put together so that
you may begin to see the relation of part to part,
and of each part to the whole. Let the process go
on until the machine stands before you, the living
embodiment of the designer's idea ; then what was
before an incoherent mass, becomes that which
can be understood by the intellect, and you have
added to your knowledge. But what made the
interpretation possible 1 Fix your attention on
that. How came it that you could interpret the
mechanism in the one case, and not in the other }
When you understood it, it was because you read
the thought that was embodied in it ; because you
saw in the completed work an idea ; because reason
in the machine spoke to reason in you ; because

I02 MIND.

mind spoke to mind ; because the mechanism
sprang from mind and embodied mind : in virtue
of this were you able to know it ; without this
it could not have become knowledge, for it was
mind that gave it meaning.

To make the matter, if possible, still clearer,
take Berkeley's illustration. On the ruins of Assy-
rian temples, on the walls of the tombs of Karnak,
amid the crumbling ruins of Mexico, are to be
found wonderful signs and inscriptions written
there by the ancient races. To scholars, these in-
scriptions are full of meaning. By patient study,
by a careful comparison of alphabet with alpha-
bet, the known with the unknown, scholars have
solved the meaning of these inscriptions, and read
the history of nations long since passed away.
But the thing that makes the interpretation of
these inscriptions possible is that they contain
thought. Unless they had contained thought,
" The wild raven, or the lion with his claws, might
have scratched figures on the rocks, but then, no
man could have read them." They would then
have expressed no thought, therefore could not
have been interpreted. It is thought embodied
in these inscriptions that makes them possible of

MIND. 103

interpretation. Well, now, go out into nature.
You say you can understand it. To you it is a
grand, beautiful, harmonious system. You see in
it relations so invariable that you can get out of
them the various sciences. Now what follows ?
This : you could not understand nature, if nature
were not rational, or if it embodied not thought.
It is mind in nature that makes nature knowable ;
rid it of mind, and no man could know it, for it is
mind in nature, manifested in relationships, that
makes it knowable. Alone as mind in man stands
face to face with mind in nature, can knowledge
or science be. And so, out of a true analysis of
man, as well as out of a true analysis of nature,
the place of mind in the universe is determined.
In man, if knowledge can be, in nature, if nature
can be interpreted, mind must be first. The un-
conditioned before the conditioned, the undeter-
mined before the determined. Mind in man is
the condition of knowledge. Mind in nature, its
archetype and interpretation.

It was the vision of this, the perception of mind
in nature, speaking to mind in man, that led
Tennyson to ask of his soul the question : —

I04 MIND.

" The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas,

The hills, and the plains.
Are not these, O, soul, the vision of

Him who reigns ?

" Is not the vision He ? Though He be not

That which He seems ?
Dreams are true while they last, and

Do not we live in dreams ?

" Dark is the world to thee, thyself art

The reason why.
For is He not all but thou, that hast

Power to feel, ' I am I ' ?

" Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and

Spirit with spirit can meet.
Closer is He than breathing and nearer

Than hands and feet.

" And the ear of man cannot hear, and

The eye of man cannot see ;
But if we could hear and see this

Vision — were it not He ? "

LIFE.

" I affirm that no shred of trustworthy experimental testimony
exists to prove that life in our day has ever appeared indepen-
dently of antecedent life." — Tyndall.

" That dead matter cannot produce a living organism, is the
universal experience of the most eminent physiologists. Life can
be produced from life only. " — " The Unseen Universe. " pp. 2 29
230.

LIFE.

In him was life. — Jxo. i : 4.

In the year 1809 there was born in Shrewsbury,
England, a boy whose name, in after years, was to
be inseparably connected with a theory which,
more than any other, was to disturb the current
of the religious and scientific thinking of his
times. His name was Charles Robert Darwin.
From his infancy he was in love with nature ;
roaming the hillsides, or wandering alone in the
sequestered forest that stood not far distant from
his father's dwelling, young Charles in his leis-
ure moments might have been seen looking with
boyish curiosity at every thing that he saw ; study-
ing, in his boyish way, the various forms of ani-
mate life that peopled the downs, the stream, or
the pond. This was his favorite pastime.

Thus, early cultivating the acquaintance of na-
ture, she revealed to him her secrets, and when he
came to manhood he understood her as did few
107

io8 LIFE.

Others of his time. In 1859 he published his work
entitled *'The Origin of the Species by means of
Natural Selection," which at once attracted the
attention of the thinking world. Not that the
theory, which in this work he advocated, was new ;
it had been the favorite theory of certain thinkers
centuries before. But in him it received a new
impetus, and out of his wealth of nature knowledge,
in the estimation of some, it also received new
corroboration. Though as much may not be said
of many of his disciples, it is due Mr. Darwin to
say that he was sincere. He firmly believed that
the system of evolution was the system according
to which nature could best be explained ; and so,
in the interests of that system, he spent his life.
When one reflects on the kind of a man that Mr.
Darwin was — his kindness of heart, his nobility of
nature, his honesty of investigation — a feeling of
regret can hardly be repressed on account of the
fact that his name has come to be inseparably
associated with a theory so soon to be discarded ;
for already the verdict of Science is against evolu-
tion. Here and there on the list of investigators
may still be found, associated with this system,
the name of an investigator of some prominence.

LIFE. 109

Spencer, Haeckcl, Bastian, and a few others, are
still on the side of evolution. But, as a system of
nature, evolution has lived its day. Faulty as a
theory, and unsubstantiated by fact, by the fore-
most of modern scientists it is at present rejected.
Tyndall, Mivart, Dawson, Dana, and a host of
others who are unquestionably leading the van of
modern scientific thought, as well as shaping the
thought of the future, are against it.

But whatever may be our judgment of the theory
that Mr. Darwin advocated so earnestly, it cannot
be denied that the discussion which sprang up
around it has been of immense profit. For, by
that discussion, the attention of men has again
been turned back to an old problem, and new
attempts made to solve it. I speak of the problem
of life. Stimulated by what Mr. Darwin said, new
attempts have of late been made at its solution,
and the question has again been asked, How is the
presence of life in the world to be accounted for 1
In his work on "The Origin of the Species," Mr.
Darwin plainly affirmed it as his conviction that
the development of the species was a natural pro-
cess. He affirmed, that, starting with life, varia-
tion, heredity, and natural selection, are sufficient

no LIFE.

to account for the varied forms of organic life.
But to his credit let it be remembered that the
theory of evolution, as held by him, was never
meant to explain facts which others of his school
have vainly attempted to make it cover. He never
meant that the theory of evolution should be made
to account for life as to its origin. And it has
been the unwarranted assumptions of many, whose
names have been mentioned in the same cate-
gory, that has brought the system of Mr. Darwin
into disrepute. Herbert Spencer, Ernst Haeckel,
and others, while usually classed along with Mr.
Darwin as evolutionists, are not evolutionists, in
the sense in which Mr. Darwin was an evolutionist.
With them, development is made to account for
all ; not only for new species and forms, but
for life itself. They affirm that matter holds
withm itself "the promise and potency of all
life," and that when matter is brought into certain
relations, life may be evolved out of it. And thus
with them evolution is a causal theory .
given but matter and force, and out of these may
be evolved all that is, or that can be. Matter
and force are the creators of life.

Not so did Mr. Darwin regard the theory of

LIFE. 1 1 1

evolution. With him it was never intended to be
anything other than a modal theory. He meant
it simply to describe the process according to
which nature worked. He started with life, and
held that back of it in our search for its origin,
experimental science could not go. He believed
that if the origin of life was to be found, it could
be found alone by transcending the limits of the
experimental ; in short, life in his judgment was to
be referred to the miraculous interference of an
intelligent Creator at least to initiate the process.
But once having life in the world, then he held
that the system of evolution could be made to
account for the almost infinite variety of its
manifestations. And thus you see, that between
these views of evolution, especially in their re-
lation to the great problem as to the origin of life,
there is not only a wide, but also a most essential
difference. As held by Mr. Darwin, evolution not
only left room for, but it indeed demanded the
interference of an intelligent Creator at least to
initiate the process. But as held by the opposite
wing of the evolutionist school, evolution denies
the interference of a Creator and is little else but a
synonym for atheism. It deifies matter and force,
and makes out of them its God.

112 LIFE.

Now, with this system as held by Mr. Darwin,
we have nothing to do in the present discussion.
Whether it has proved itself adequate to the test
even as a modal theory we shall let others more
competent than ourselves decide. It is only in so
far as the theory of evolution bears on the ques-
tion as to the origin of life, only so far as it is
made a causal theory, does it concern us now.
What has been the origin of life } Has life been
evolved out of matter according to certain fixed
laws .-^ Or is its presence in the world to be attrib-
uted as Mr. Darwin attributed it, to something
higher than matter ; in short, to a personal Creator,
who possessing life in himself, at some time com-
municated that life to the non-living matter of the
present world } To make ourselves acquainted
with the more recent investigation as bearing on
these great questions, is at present the task
before us.

To begin, therefore : our first aim must be to get
a clear conception of what is, in strictness, living-
matter. For I need hardly tell you that apart from
matter we cannot study life at least by the experi-
mental method. Even if we could form some
mental conception of what life in itself may be, we

LIFE. 113

could never be certain as to the correctness of our
ideas. Their correctness could never be scien-
tifically established, for life can be studied alone
as it exists in living matter. But now as to
what is in reality living matter, there is among
many a very erroneous notion ; and few terms in
our common conversation are more loosely used
than this term ''living." In our study of the
plant here, one of the first things that attracts
our attention is a steady process of expansion, in
the on-going of which nutrient matter is assimi-
lated and changed into the material of root and
stem and leaf and flower. This process we call
growth. And when we wish to distinguish be-
tween the plant and some inanimate object, we
speak of it as living. In the brute and in man we
observe a like process of consumption and regener-
ation ; and when speaking of either, we again make
use of this term and speak of the *' living " brute or
the " living " man, as the case may be. And thus we
have come to regard the entire structure of the
plant, of the brute, and of man, as living. But
such is not in reality the case. By far the greater
part of every so-called living structure is not living
at all, but is dead or formed material. Not more

TI4 LIFE.

than one fifth of the material in the human body,
or in the framework of the plant yonder, is really
alive, or can properly be called living matter. The
only part in any structure that is really alive, is
those little masses of semi-fluid matter to which
the older biologists gave the name cells. If there-
fore our aim is to make ourselves acquainted with
living matter, we fnust not only begin, but we must
also end with the cell, for, apart from it, we shall
nowhere in the present world find life to be in
association.

And now that we may get a proper conception
of what a cell is, and hence some idea of what
the nature of living matter is, let us suppose an
experiment.

We have here, let us say, a grain of wheat. If,
now, we drop it into a vessel containing water, it
will soon send out its tiny roots downward, and a
little shoot, destined to become the stem, upward.
If, after a reasonable time has elapsed, we were
to take one of these little shoots, and by a
delicate movement of the section knife were to
cut a very thin section from it, and then examine
the section thus obtained with a microscope, we
would find it to be composed largely of exceed-

LIFE. 115

ingly small round or oval globules closely packed
together. These are the cells ; but as you look
at them now, they present very much the same
appearance that a mass of frozen drops of water
would present ; for as they lie thus together in a
compact mass you see nothing but their outlines,
and would hardly suspect their being made up of
parts. But if instead of the pure water in which
the little root grew, you had used water with
which an ammoniacal solution of carmine had been
united, the section would on examination present
quite a different appearance from the one it pre-
sented before. For as the process of growth would
now go on, the carmine fluid, taken up by the pores
of the root, would stain the cells, so that, instead
of appearing as before, perfectly transparent and
homogeneous, they would now be found to be
made up of parts. Inside the fluid mass of the cell
would be found one or more bodies called nucleus
or nuclei, according to the number, and in addition
to these, outside the fluid mass would be observed
a membrane or wall. In short, we would find that
each cell instead of being constituted of a simple
mass of homogeneous protoplasm, is in reality
made up of three parts : the wall ; the fluid mass

ii6 LIFE.

within the wall ; and the little body called the
nucleus. Essentially the same appearance would
be presented, if instead of a thin section of a
plant we were to substitute a small piece of
animal tissue. For when stained with the car-
mine fluid the cells contained within it will like-
wise be found to be made up of the three parts
already named ; the cell wall, its fluid contents or
bioplasm, and the nucleus.

Now, until recently, most biologists regarded
the cell, made up as we have learned of its three
parts, as the only material form with which life
could be associated. They insisted that wherever
life was, there also was the cell with its three
parts ; they called the cell *' the ultimate mor-
phological unit;" and by that they meant that
these little bodies alone were concerned in vital
action, and that by them every tissue whether of
bone, or muscle, or nerve, or bloodvessel was built
up. It was held that these were the machines by
whose agency every organism in the category of
organic being has been wrought and fashioned ;
here they have busied themselves in the building
of the flower with its stamens, its petals, its pistil
and seed lobes ; there l)ui]din<'- the bones, the

LIFE. 1 1 7

framework of the human body; here fashioning
the membrane of the ear, there the delicate and
wondrous senses of the eye : everywhere taking
of the unformed material and working out of it
the various parts of the limitless forms of organic
life.

Now the work that is done by these little artisans,
the cells, was held to be this : to transform dead
material into living material, and then this again
into the formed material of the tissues. For every
part of an organism when once built up has been
fashioned out of dead material in the workshop of
life. Every formed part was once dead material,
then transformed into living material, then de-
posited as formed material ; and so while it is true
that the greater part of every organism is dead,
yet every particle of it was once alive ; for it is by
being made living, that former material is wrought
out of dead matter.

But see how these cells accomplish their work.
Here, let us say, is one of these living units, a cell,
possessing as it does the power of changing non-
living matter into living, and then again in its
tiny workshop, working this living matter into
formed material ; the dead matter out of which it

Il8 LIFE.

is to build is called pabulum. Well, here is our
cell surrounded by this nutrient matter, or, as it
is called, pabulum. Now watch the progress as it
goes on. The first thing observed, is the minute
particles of pabulum passing through the cell wall
into the interior of the cell. Here it comes in
contact with the bioplasm or living matter that is
inclosed by the cell wall. When the pabulum
once comes in contact with the bioplasm of the
cell, it is at once changed into living matter or
bioplasm. Then losing again its life, that which
was once pabulum, and in its second stage bioplasm,
is now deposited inside the cell wall as formed
material. At first we would observe this formed
material appearing as a thin film on the inner
surface of the cell, the film gradually becoming
thicker and thicker by the gradual deposition of
the formed material.

Thus we should see our little artisans building
up tissue after tissue, and effecting that wonder-
ful phenomenon called growth. Out of the non-
living pabulum, the bioplasm of the cell makes
living matter, and while in the living state works
it into the formed material, of which every organ-
ism, whether of plant or animal, is in the main
composed.

LIFE. 1 1 9

But now we have come to a point at which I
must ask you to make a distinction. If we are to
study life in the light of the most recent investi-
gation, we must distinguish between what was
formerly and what is now regarded as living mat-
ter. The necessity of this distinction arises from
the fact that recent investigation has shown the
former biologists to have been in error in regard
to the answer given to the question as to what is
distinctively living matter. It was held formerly
as I have already indicated, that living matter is
the cell as such, and biologists spoke of it as the
"living unit." But at present, with a better
knowledge than was then had, it is almost univer-
sally felt, that either the definition then given of
what a cell is must be discarded, or else so enlarged
as to make it cover any simple mass of bioplasm.
As a consequence, the answer that is now given
to the question. What is a cell } is quite different
from the answer given to the same question years
ago. Prior to the year 1869, a cell was described
as we have described it : as a living unit made
up of three parts ; cell-wall, fluid contents, and
nucleus. It was then held that life belonged alone
to the cell as thus constituted. At present, how-

I20 Life.

ever, it is clearly established that two of these
parts are not essential to the presence of life, and
do not necessarily belong to living matter. But
that life may be when both cell-wall and nucleus
are absent, and nothing present but the fluid con-
tents or bioplasm. In other words, it is now set-
tled that bioplasm alone is living matter.

Well, now, I have called your attention to this
because of this fact, that you will often hear the
statement that the cell theory has been aban-
doned ; and I wanted you to understand the
precise feature of it that has been outlived. Its
defect was, that it defined the cell as a living
unit made up of the three parts already mentioned,
and narrowed life down to the cell as thus defined.
And when it was afterward found, as we shall
presently learn, that life was not confined to the
cell as such, but existed where nothing was but
simple bioplasm ; that the wall and nucleus were
in no way essential, and that the smallest mass of
bioplasm might with perfect propriety be called a
cell, in that it did all that the former biologists
attributed to the cell, then was the cell theory,
so far at least as its definition is concerned, aban-
doned and the fact established that bioplasm alone

LIFE. 121

is living matter. To-day, outside of Germany, the
cell theory with its defective definition has but
few adv'Ocates. Originating as it did with the
great German naturalist, Schleiden, it may per-
haps be, that a reverence for its great originator
has had something to do with its present hold in
the Fatherland. But however that may be, its
essential defects have long since been demon-
strated. Early in the present century the emi-
nent physiologist Fletcher pointed out the error
in the cell theory, as then held, and showed that
its definition of living matter was too narrow. He
proved that in some cases, at least, living matter
was structureless and that life was not contingent
on matter arranged as it was in the cell. But
while Fletcher headed the movement that has
since culminated in what is now called the Proto-
plasmic Theory of Life, it remained for Lionel
Beale to demonstrate the truthfulness of the posi-
tion that Fletcher took. In his work on Bioplasm
and also in that entitled How to Work With the
Microscope, this unsurpassed investigator conclu-
sively shows the error of the cell theorists, and
establishes on the one hand, that life is not con-
tingent on the presence of either cell wall or

\

122 LIFE.

nucleus, and on the other, that both cell-wall and
nucleus are but after products, the results of bio-
plasmic action. By Beale, living matter was nar-
rowed down to one single substance, viz ; the fluid
contents of the cell ; for when you have taken
away the little bodies in the interior and also
the membrane on the exterior, you still have left
the semi-fluid mass. Well, now, when Beale found
that both the cell wall and the nucleus might be
absent and life still be present, he came to the
only conclusion at which it was possible for him
to arrive, which was, that life had alone to do with
the fluid contents of the cell ; that it alone was
living matter. He then showed that wherever it
was present life was also present ; that when it
was absent life was also absent. To this semi-
fluid mass, always found within the living cell, he
gave the name bioplasm.

But see now how Beale proved that bioplasm
alone is living matter. His proof rests on a prin-
ciple well known to every one at all acquainted
with microscopical technology ; the principle of
selective stains. In order to illustrate the method
by which Beale proved his position, let us once
more suppose an experiment. Let us suppose

LIFE. 123

that we have here a thin transparent tissue taken
from some portion of the animal body. If it has
been selected with a view to our experiment, it
will contain in it, muscular fiber, connective tissue,
blood vessels, nerve threads and cells. But having
placed it under the microscope, you will find it
well-nigh impossible to differentiate the various
tissues ; the structure will appear nearly homoge-
neous. There are the nerve fibers, but you cannot
trace them on account of the fact that they present
the same appearance as the surrounding tissues.
There is living matter and formed material, but
you cannot distinguish the one from the other.
Well, now, if you remember that the chemical
constitution of each of these parts differs from the
chemical constitution of the others, you will under-
stand why it is that different chemical compounds
will act on these various parts in different ways.
One compound will stain one particular tissue,
say the muscle, while it will have no effect what-
ever on the nerve fiber. Another fluid will take
hold of the living matter and give to it a certain
color, and at the same time leave the formed mate-
rial unchanged.

Take, now, the tissue which a moment ago we

124 LIFE.

put under the microscope, and which then ap-
peared to be perfectly homogeneous ; put it here
for a few moments in a watch-glass containing a
solution of picro carmine. If you now examine it,
you will find that you have stained the connective
tissue and the nuclei a bright red, while the muscle
has retained its normal color. Now transfer it to
a vessel containing water to which a few drops of
acetic acid have been added, and when thoroughly
saturated transfer it to a solution of safranine, and
you will observe that you have now succeeded in
staining the muscle and the epithelium. If now
you put the tissue again under the microscope, it
will present quite a different appearance from that
which it presented in the first instance. You have
now, on account of the difference in color of the
various tissues, no difficulty in differentiating each
particular one, any more than you would have in
selecting the white threads from the black in a
cotton fabric.

Now it was the application of this principle of
selective stains to the various tissues of living
organisms, that furnished Beale with the facts
whereby he sustained his position that the thin,
viscid material found in the cell, alone was alive.

LIFE. 125

He found that when a portion of animal or vege-
table tissue was immersed in a solution of carmine,
the living matter was always stained by the fluid.
By repeated experiments he proved that wherever
there was living matter, the carmine was sure to
find it, select it out, communicate to it its color, so
that when examined under the microscope it be-
came an easy thing to distinguish the living matter
from the dead or formed material. What now
became of the cell theory when this selective
power of carmine was discovered and its affinity
for living matter established, I have already indi-
cated. By the carmine process it was shown that
the cell-wall was simply formed material ; that it
did not live. Through it to the interior of the cell
the carmine fluid passed and repassed, and while it
never failed to stain the bioplasm within, it had
no effect on the cell-wall itself. Thus it was
shown that not the membrane, but that which
was contained within the membrane was the essen-
tial thing. That the cell-wall had no more to do
with life than the shell which the snail secretes
has to do with the life of the snail itself ; and that
as the shell of the snail is but the secretion and
after product of the living animal, so is the cell-

126 LIFE.

wall but the product of the living bioplasm within.
But as the cell-wall was thus proven to be not an
essential element, so also with the nucleus and
nuclei ; for it was found that bioplasm in a com-
paratively quiescent state is not unfrequently
entirely destitute of either. In many of the fungi
and lichens the nucleus was found to be wanting:,
and the same was found true even in many forms
of the amoebae. It is the oft-expressed opinion
of Beale that the nucleus and nuclei, like the cell-
wall, are after products, and that the bioplasm
having been first formed, these appear in it after-
ward as new centers of growth or of more intense
vital activity. He believed that while they possess
the same composition as the material of bioplasm,
they by no means constitute an essential factor,
from the fact that life may exist whether they be
present or absent.

Well, now you see what, as the result of recent
investigation, has become of the cell theory as
such. It held that the cell, made up of the
nucleus, cell-wall and fluid contents, was a living
unit ; that the phenomenon of life could be mani-
fested alone when each and all of these were ])res-
cnt and existed toirethcr as a unit, l^ut when it

LIFE. 127

was found that the cell-wall was often wanting,
and that the nucleus was by no means invariably
present — in short, when it was found that bio-
plasm was the only element that could not be
dispensed with and life yet be present — then was
not only the cell theory abandoned, but the fact
also established that bioplasm alone lives ; it alone
is living matter. Now that was a great step.
You can see at a glance that it wonderfully sim-
plified the problem of life, in that it narrowed
living matter down to one simple homogeneous
substance, the transparent and colorless, and, so
far as can be ascertained by examination with the
highest powers, perfectly structureless, bioplasm.
But having made this advanced step towards the
solution of the great question, another was imme-
diately attempted. When it was settled that pro-
toplasm, or to use Beale's term, bioplasm, was the
only living substance, then the nature of bioplasm
itself became the subject of investigation. It was
asked, May not this living substance be produced 1
May not its chemical formula be determined, so
that by a proper combination of the elements
entering into its composition, living matter may
be evolved } For is not life, after all, but the

128 LIFE.

result of the union of chemical elements united
in a certain way and in certain proportions ?
Well, these are the questions at which scientific
men have assiduously been working for more than
a quarter of a century, and with what results we
shall presently see. Clearly the first thing to
be determined was, whether this living matter is
identical in all living structures. If bioplasm is
not identical, if the bioplasm of the oak, or the
flower, differs from the bioplasm of the amoeba
or man, if that of the most simple living structure
is not the same as that of the most complex, then
the question would have been indeed a most intri-
cate one. But that difficulty did not stand in the
way. By the aid of the microscope and the vari-
ous tests known to the chemist, bioplasm was
found to be identical, and the fact established
that wherever found it has always the same com-
position. It has been proven that the bioplasm
of the embryo is the same as that of the adult ;
that that of the most inveterate morbid growth
could not be distinguished from that of the healthy
tissue, and that even the bioplasm of the lowest
fungus is the same as that of tlie brain of man.
And thus you see what have been some of the

LIFE. 129

results of these recent years of biological investi-
gation. To a certain extent those results have
been most satisfactory. On the one hand, living
matter has been clearly defined ; the fact has
been established that the only matter that lives
is the thin viscid and transparent fluid of the cells,
and on the other hand it has also been settled
that between the bioplasm of the lowest and that
of the highest organism no difference exists, and
that bioplasm everywhere and under all circum-
stances is identical. And thus you see what
progress has of late been made toward the solu-
tion of the problem of life.

It is clear that now but one step remains, and
that is the production of living matter. For you
see that before the question as to the origin of
life can be said to be answered by experimental
science, it must not only tell us what living matter
is and what it is not, but the process whereby
living matter has been evolved must be demon-
strated. Bioplasm, obtained otherwise than from
pre-existing bioplasm, must be compounded or at
least shown to exist, for until that is done Science
has not solved the problem of life. Anything
short of this is but to trace living matter to pre-

130 LIFE.

existing living matter for its origin, and thus to
go from one member of an infinite series to
another without coming any nearer to the crucial
question as to how life came to exist in the first
member of the series. That life comes from
pre-existing life we know ; experience everywhere
teaches that fact, and every experiment hitherto
made has but served to establish the dictum that
life has and can come alone from pre-existing life.
Until it can be shown that certain elements united
in a certain way, until it can be shown that when
matter is brought into certain relations and sub-
mitted to certain conditions, life is the result,
then and not till then is the task achieved. But
I need hardly tell you that this has proven the
most difficult task of all. So far, at least, every
attempt at the production of living matter has
culminated in absolute failure, and from the nature
of the case, all such attempts in the future must
meet with the same result. Out of the secret
chambers in which the mysteries of life are con-
cealed there comes a voice that speaks to experi-
mental science and says, " Hitherto shalt thou
come, but no further."

But look now at what has been the historv of

LIFE. 131

the attempts at the production of living matter.
When it was found that the bioplasm of all living
structures was identical, then the task of produc-
ing bioplasm was attempted. The first attempt
was made by the chemical method. It seemed
probable that if bioplasm or living matter could
be analyzed, and its formula once determined,
that then by a synthetic process its elements
could be combined, and thus living matter be
produced. The work was begun. In more than a
hundred laboratories something analogous to that
wonderful substance which has power to change
the non-living into the living, that builds up the
wondrous structures of bone and muscle and fibre,
was compounded. So far as the most delicate
tests could show, this artificial substance was pre-
cisely the same as that produced in the laboratory
of Nature ; it seemed to be the same as the bio-
plasm which pre-existing bioplasm produced. But
when thus artificially produced, one thing was
lacking — the substance did not live. Persistently
life refused to be associated with it. It might be
subjected to the most favorable conditions, but it
still remained as its elements had been before,
simply dead matter. Abortive as were the at-

132 LIFE.

tempts of the ancient alchemists to produce the
philosopher's stone, so also has been every
attempt to wed the mysterious forces of life with
artificial protoplasm. And thus out of these
repeated failures it has come to be recognized by
biologists that by no process is it possible to pro-
duce living matter. A material similar to that
with which life has once been associated, or if
you please, the dead matter of a once living organ-
ism, may be compounded by the chemist. He
can produce a substance in character and in com-
position precisely similar to the substance which
once lived, but a living substance no man can
produce ; for, observe : that what a mass of proto-
plasm is composed of when vitality has ceased to
exist in it, is quite a different question from the
one as to what such protoplasm was composed of
while possessing vitality. Matter that once lived
may be analyzed and then imitated ; but matter
in the living state cannot be analyzed, for to ana-
lyze it is to destroy its life and leave it no longer
living matter.

You see, then, the cause of the failure hitherto
in tlie pioduction of living matter, and can under-
stand how it must be that the same cause beinsr

LIFE. 133

as it shall be ever present, must ever stand in the
way of every attempt to get at the origin of life
by the experimental method ; for it is evident that
if living matter cannot be analyzed then neither
can it be compounded.

Open here Beale's work on Bioplasm and read
what this foremost investigator has to say on the
subject of living matter as compared with the dead
matter with which life has once been associated.
These are his words: ''When the life of a mass
of bioplasm of any kind has once been cut short,
lifeless substances having similar properties result.
When a mass of bioplasm dies, it is resolved into
fibrine, albumen, fatty matter and salts. These
things do not exist in the matter when it is bio-
plasm, but as the latter dies it splits up into these
four classes of compounds."

Read also his testimony in his work on " How
to Work with the Microscope:" "Authority
may continue to refuse to admit, or may deem it
expedient to deny that the living state differs
absolutely and entirely from the non-living condi-
tion, but the truth remains that in the living state
of matter, whether in the living matter of the
growing fungus, or that concerned in mental

134 LIFE.

action, material forces and properties are some-
how governed and controlled, and in a manner not
to be imitated by us, or to be explained by any-
thing known concerning non-living matter, while
it is incontestable that the moment the matter
ceases to live, its capacity for manifesting its ordi-
nary properties returns." Let me ask you not to
overlook one very significant phrase in that state-
ment of Dr. Beale's. It is the one in which he
affirms that in ''living matter material forces and
properties are somehow governed and controlled,
and in a manner not to be imitated by us." It
has now been well-nigh ten years since Dr. Beale
penned those words. To materialistic thinkers — to
those who affirmed that living matter could be
successfully imitated, they doubtless sounded like
an ominous prophecy. But that prophecy has not
yet been impeached, nor from the very nature of
the case will it ever be. Even before Beale,
Fletcher had made statements precisely similar.
"■ It seems probable," says Fletcher, "■ that during
this temporary living state the elements do not
exist in a state of ordinary chemical combination
at all ; these ordinary attractions or affinities seem
to be suspended for the time. And again, "To

LIFE. 135

assert that living matter is 'protein ' or 'albumen '
is to assert that which never has been or can be
proved, and all arguments based upon such asser-
tions must be discarded."

And thus the attempt to get the living out of
the dead, at least by the chemical method, accord-
ing to the testimony of the foremost biologists of
the present must be abandoned. More than a
quarter of a century ago it was held by the best
thinkers that living matter was matter in a state
utterly siii generis. And the correctness of that
judgment is now but demonstrated since men have
been looking more profoundly into the question.
The verdict therefore of biology as it is now given
is this : Life is not the result or outcome of ma-
terial elements united in any known way, but is
the product of pre-existing life. Or as Virchow
has since put it, Oninis cellida e cellida. That propo-
sition, first affirmed by Schleiden, and re-affirmed
by Remak and Virchow, stands as the fundamental
principle upon which the science of biology to-day
rests.

Well now since the chemical method has so
utterly broken down, and the impossibility of
getting at the origin of life by that method has

13^ LIFE.

been demonstrated, in despair, a few of the more
rabid materialists have turned backward and are
now making an attempt to bring forward an old
hypothesis. I speak of the hypothesis known by
the title " spontaneous generation." But in view
of what has just been said, I think I shall not need
to dwell long in order to show the error inherent
in this revived hypothesis. For you can easily see
that the facts operating against the evolution of
life by the chemical method, must also operate
against its evolution by the supposed processes of
spontaneous generation. For, after all, spontane-
ous generation is but an assigning to Nature the
task of producing life by the same methods and
out of the same materials which have so often
failed in the hands of the chemist. What man
cannot do by the use of certain laws and methods,
this hypothesis affirms that Nature has done by
precisely the same laws and methods.

And yet, strange as it may seem, out of an un-
willingness to face the conclusions which Biology
to-day forces upon the materialistic thinkers of our
times, this ghost of the seventeenth century is
a^cain brou^cht forward into the arena of scientific
combat, in the vain hope that it may do service in
the present extremity.

LIFE. 137

Astounding, in view of what is now known con-
cerning life, is the statement of Dr. Bastian, in his
" Beginnings of Life " Here are his words :
*• Both observation and experiment unmistakably
testify to the fact that living matter is continually
being formed de ?tovo, in obedience to the same
laws and tendencies which determine all the more
simple chemical combinations."

Now, instead of observation and experiment un-
mistakably testifying to that assumption, they
unmistakably and unqualifiedly testify to directly
the contrary. But let me tell you here how Dr.
Bastian came to make this assumption, in order
that you may the better know precisely what esti-
mate you are to put upon it. Taking an infusion
of hay or of other organic matter known to con-
tain living germs, he put it into glass vessels
which he then hermetically sealed so as to exclude
all outer air. These vessels with their contents,
were then subjected to the boiling temperature
for several hours ; until as he supposed every germ
had become lifeless. The contents of the vessels,
were then examined under the microscope, and
living bacteria were found. And so when Dr.
Bastian found these myriad forms of life in the

138 LIFE.

water which he supposed had been rendered sterile,
he reasoned that inasmuch as all former life had
been destroyed, the life which was now present
could be accounted for alone on the supposition
that it was spontaneously produced. As a deduc-
tion from these experiments he made the assertion
to which I have called your attention.

But now if you remember that the temperature
at which all germs are certainly destroyed has not
yet been fixed, and that many are capable of sus-
taining a temperature much above that of boiling
water, you can see how presumptuous a statement
such as that must be. And when you also bear
in mind the difficulty involved in effectually pre-
venting germs from coming in contact with the
water even after it had been rendered sterile, you
will be prepared to accept all such statements as
these with the largest grains of allowance, as well
as perceive how Dr. Bastian was liable to come to
his erroneous conclusion. His error was pointed
out by Professor Tyndall. Repeating the experi-
ment with the hay infusion, with greater precau-
tions, and with far more manipulative skill, Pro-
fessor Tyndall showed that all that Bastian had
said was without foundatiun. lie proved that

LIFE. 139

when the proper precautions were observed to
destroy the germs in the glass vessel, not a vestige
of life appeared in the fluid when afterward ex-
amined. And though acknowledging his own
regret at the results of his experiments, this is his
conclusion, stated in his own words : '' I affirm
that no shred of trustworthy experimental testi-
mony exists to prove that life in our day has ever
appeared independently of antecedent life." Read
also the article on Biology, written by Professor
Huxley, in the Encyclopasdia Britannica, and when
you have read it put it here over against the state-
ment of Dr. Bastian's : "That living matter is
constantly being formed de novo in obedience to
the same laws and tendencies which determine all
the more simple chemical combinations." These
are Professor Huxley's words : '' Not only is the
kind of evidence adduced in favor of spontaneous
generation logically insufficient to furnish proof of
its occurrence, but it may be stated as a well-
based induction, that the more careful the investi-
gator and the more complete his mastery over the
endless practical difficulties which surround ex-
perimentation on this subject, the more certain
are his experiments to give negative results, while

140 LIFE.

positive results are no less sure to crown the
efforts of the clumsy and the careless."

Such, then, is the attitude of the more careful
and far-sighted of modern biologists toward the
theory of spontaneous generation. As a theory
of life it has been proven inadequate, and as a fact,
it exists not in Nature. But it is not my purpose to
speak lightly of experimental science. In view of
what it has achieved no man can speak in terms
of disrespect in regard to it without belittling and
stultifying himself. We have done too much of
that already. In many things it is true she has
failed. On many of the more important and vexed
questions that concern us she has not given us
the light which we hoped and perhaps expected
her to give ; but we must not expect the impos-
sible. Neither must we forget that experimental
science has not yet given us a theory of life that
will stand the test. At one time it offered the
physical theory, and said that life was the out-
come of material elements united in certain pro
portions and under certain conditions. To-day,
retracting its former statement, it declares that
theory unscientific and in no wise capable of
solving the problem of life.

LIFE. 141

Again in the hypothesis of spontaneous genera-
tion, a new theory of life was proposed. But when
it came to testing this theory by the very experi-
ments which should have given positive results, it
too broke down, and to-day discarded by respect-
able scientists everywhere, it has already been
withdrawn. We are left therefore without a
theory of life, at least from the scientific side.
But while experimental science has given us no
theory of life, its efforts at the solution of the
problem have not been in vain. Out of these
years of scientific investigation two principles far-
reachins: in their sisrnificance have forever been
established. Those principles are these : —

First, all life in the present world is to be
traced to pre-existing life.

Second, life is not the result of a gradual devel-
opment or passage of the non-living into the
living.

It would be impossible within our prescribed
limits to array the testimony at present given on
the side of the first proposition. On its side
stand men like Louis Agassiz, Virchow, Elam,
Tyndall, Dawson, Dana, and a host of others whose
names stand brisfhtest in the constellation of modern

142 LIFE.

scientific thinkers. In the significant words of
Professor Huxley it may be said, "The doctrine
of biogenesis, or life from life, is victorious along
the whole line at the present day."

But none the less positive is the testimony on
the side of the second proposition. Turn again to
Lionel Beale and read his testimony on this point :
" There is no transition from the non-living into
the living state, but matter passes suddenly from
one state into the other. Neither is there in any
case a gradation from any form of non-living
matter."

Again in his work on Protoplasm you have this
statement : " The ultimate particles of matter
pass from the lifeless into the living state, and
from the latter into the dead state suddenly.
Matter cannot be said to half live or half die. It
is either dead or living, animate or inanimate, and
formed matter has ceased to live.

Well, now you see the shape in which the
problem relating to the origin of life to-day stands,
and how near Science has come to its solution.
It is true that so far at least the results have in
the main been negative, and the origin of life has
not yet been shown by experimental science. But

LIFE. 143

the investigation of the problem has also had its
positive side. For having searched in vain the
fields of the natural, Science to-day stands in
devoiitcr attitude than ever before, and in answer
to our question, " Whence came life ? " points her
finger toward the unseen. It is certain that life
is here. As a factor of the present world, its
presence is to be accounted for.

Scientifically it is equally certain that there was
a time when in this world life was not. Silently
the globe wheeled its flight through space, when
throughout its mighty chambers no life of spore
or monad was present. Over the mighty empires
of the earth now teeming with life and movement,
Death reigned as universal king. But life now is
here ; in rayless ocean depths, on Alpine peaks
amid eternal snows, on every shore and beyond
every circle, yea, even in the empty air the hum
of Nature's industry is heard. But whence came
life } Before you answer that question, let me
ask you not to lose sight of those two propo-
sitions which are to-day affirmed by the foremost
biologists : —

First, that all life in the present world is to be
referred to pre-existent life.

144 LIFE.

Second, that life is not the result of a gradual
development or passage of the non-living into the
living ; and with these propositions, wrought out
in the heat of well-nigh a century's investigation
before your mind, answer me the question, Whence
came life ? It was not here once. In the gaseous
state of the infant world life could not exist. It has
been an after product. It came in the fullness of
time. But whence, and how } It will not help
you to say with Sir William Thompson, that the
germs of living matter have come to our globe
borne on the shoulders of some meteor or frag-
ment of some other world. That assumption but
shifts the difficulty without solving the question.
For how came life to these other worlds } Like
ours, they too have once been in a gaseous state,
and with such a state life, whether here or there,
is incompatible. Trace life, if you please, from
this world to another, and from that back again to
another, and so on until you have swept the gal-
axies, and at last you will be left standing on the
verge of the same chasm that confronted you in
this — the chasm that yawns between the living
and the non-living, and that somewhere and some-
how has been crossed.

LIFE. 145

This side of that chasm is the natural ; the
other side is the spiritual ; this side is the seen ;
the other side is the unseen ; this is the temporal,
that the eternal. What if experimental science
cannot show us how that chasm was crossed and
life brought from the other side to this ? That it
has been passed is certain ; that it could not have
been passed without the intervention of a divine
hand is the conclusion to which the more recent in-
vestigations in biology unmistakably point. Face
to face with that conclusion, accepting it as the
necessary result of the most careful and accurate
scientific investigation, stand Elam and Dawson
and Agassiz and Carpenter and Lionel Beale.
With him who aforetime saw the heavens opened,
these unite in testifying that, '' In Him was life."
If life in the world was not ; if life comes alone
from pre-existing life, then does it follow that the
life that now is has been communicated to the non-
living by Him who hath life in Himself. That
One who lives, and shall live forevermore.

THE BRAIN.

If a man die, shall he live again ? — Job.

THE BRAIN.

Shall it be with me as it is with the brute ?
When the extinguisher is put down on the lamp
here, shall my life, as its, go out in everlasting
night ? or shall my lamp, after the extinguisher is
down upon it here, gleam on in a richer brightness
there ? Not if materialism is true. If there is
nothing of me but bone and muscle and fiber and
cell, then when these are destroyed, as they shall
be by death, all is destroyed, and I hope in vain
for a life beyond. But if there is something
within me that is independent of bone and fiber
and muscle and cell, then when these decay, as
they shall, that something may live on.

Until quite recently, no affirmative answer could
scientifically be given to our question regarding
man's immortality. But the answer that Science
now gives is more than a qualified affirmative.
One thing at least is certain. If the soul is inde-
pendent of the body here, it may be hereafter.
If the musician is not a part of the instrument,

149

ISO THE BRAIN.

then the destruction of the instrument cannot be
the destruction of the musician. And if the soul
plays on the fibers and cells of the brain as the
musician does on the instrument, then the soul is
independent of these fibers and cells, just as the
musician is independent of the instrument. And
if the destruction of the instrument is not the
destruction of the musician, then the destruction
of these fibers and cells at death is not the
destruction of the soul.

It is apparent, therefore, that the question as to
the separate existence of the body and the soul in
the present state bears most intimately on the
question of our immortality. If the soul in the
present state maintains a separate existence, then
is the relation which the body sustains to it not
an essential one. The question, then, for us to
answer is. Does the soul even in the present state
maintain such a separate existence .^ Does it play
on the fibers and cells of the brain as the musi-
cian does on the instrument ? If it does, then it
cannot be a part of the body, and must be inde-
pendent of it.

In his work on "Mind and Body," Professor
Alexander Bain makes this si-'iiificant admission :

THE BRAIN. 151

that there is no intrinsic improbability attaching
to the supposition that the mind may exist alto-
gether distinct from the body. Martensen, one
of the most learned and careful of German writers,
in the first volume of his ** Christian Dogmatics,"
says, " In certain states of ecstasy and of vision,
there appears for the moment a separation of
the soul from the body, an existence apart from
the body, in which the soul is not absolutely with-
out the body and without nature, but lives in a
manner free of the body and of nature ; and this
may be described as a type or anticipation of its
state after death." Archbishop Manning, cited
with approval by Dr. Carpenter, says, "There is
still another faculty, and more than this another
agent, distinct from the thinking brain."

And thus in the estimation of some of the most
far-sighted and trustworthy thinkers, it appears at
least probable that the soul may have an exist-
ence independent of the body even here. But in
regard to a question so far-reaching in its con-
sequences, we cannot rest satisfied with mere
probabilities. Realizing that our hold on this life
is gradually yet certainly losing as the years rush
on, drawing nearer and nearer to the darkness,

15^ THE BRAIN.

knowing that shortly we must feel the touch of
its dampness upon the cheek, we would be certain
if possible as to whither we are going. One thing
we know. If the soul is independent of the body
here it may be hereafter. If it is not — if it is
dependent on fiber and cell — then so far as Sci-
ence can show, we must be content to enter the
darkness with the bandage upon our eyes. It
shall be our purpose in the present discussion, to
look at the physical basis on which our hopes of
immortality are grounded, in order that we may
see in how far those hopes are consistent with
well-established physical facts.

Before, however, we are prepared to investigate
this subject in its scientific light, or are qualified
to estimate the bearing which the results of mod-
ern investigation have upon it, we must make our-
selves acquainted with the material mechanism
concerned in action and thought. Before the
musician can produce harmony, he must have
the instrument. But as an inspection of the
instrument and a study of the arrangement and
relation of its various parts will let us into the
secret of how harmony may be produced when its
keys are pressed by the fingers of the musician,

THE BRAIN. 153

SO will an inspection of the anatomy of the brain
and the nervous system of man let us into the
secret of how mental and physical action may be
accounted for.

With the most recent works on physiology and
histology open before us, let us seek an answer to
the three following questions : How are vol-
untary and involuntary motion to be explained ?
How is brain activity to be accounted for? How
explain the phenomenon of memory ?

That the fibers and cells of the brain and ner-
vous system are the material elements concerned
in the production of each of these phenomena, I
shall not occupy your time in proving. How they
do their work, how by their action and reaction
the phenomena already named are produced, these
are the questions that shall concern us.

To begin, therefore, let us study for a moment
one of these single nerve fibers. If we were to
dissect any part of the body under the micro-
scope, we would find it filled with silvery threads
of various size, ranging in thickness from one-
fifteenth-hundredth to one-twelve-thousandth of
an inch in diameter, the medium or average thick-
ness beino- about one-six-thousandth of an inch.

154 THE BRAIN.

These little threads are the nerve fibers. If you
were to take the pains to examine one of them
with a high magnifying power, and after it had
been so prepared as to show its true character,
you would find it to be made up of three parts :
an outer structureless membrane ; an interior
layer of fatty matter ; a central core or cylinder of
albuminous matter. This central core, or "axis,"
as it is called, is the important part of the fiber,
the two envelopes serving, so far as is known, no
other purpose than that of a sheath for the pro-
tection of the delicate axis, and affording a means
of insulating one fiber from another. If now you
were to carefully trace one of these fibers from its
outer terminus under the skin inward, to all ap-
pearance it would grow larger and larger as it
approaches the nerve centres, just as the roots
of a tree seem to grow larger as they approach
the trunk, on account of the accumulation of
smaller roots and rootlets. And yet if you were
to examine more closely you would find that in-
stead of uniting with other fibers, as it seems to
do, each fiber remains separate from every other
fiber and runs from its outer terminus inward,
without uniting with any otlicr until it reaches

THE BRAIN. 155

the brain. And thus you see that each fiber is
able to carry any impression that it may receive
directly to the brain. If you were standing in
the Western Union Telegraph Office in New York
City, where there are scores of wires running out
in every direction, and would suppose for a moment
that each wire was put there for the single purpose
of connecting New York directly with other points,
you perceive that each wire would then bring its
own distinct message. That from Chicago would
bring one, that from Washington and Boston
each another, and so on. Thus news could be
sent from any part of the country directly to
New York, because wires run from that city to
every point. Now in something after the same
manner, each nerve fiber carries its own sensation
to the brain.

Those fibers having their outer terminus in
the eye carry to the brain impressions of sight.
Those terminating in the ear bring to the brain
impressions of sound. If I touch my desk with
a finger of my right hand, a certain nerve or set
of nerves carries the impression immediately to
the great nerve centre. If I touch it with a fin-
ger of the left hand, another set of nerves carries

156 THE BR Am.

the impression inward. And so with any part of
the body ; when any part is touched or affected in
any way, certain nerves immediately transmit the
impression to the brain.

Now it is important that you should remember
that there are two kinds of nerve fibers : the
afferent, or those passing toward the nerve cen-
tres, and the efferent, or those passing from the
nerve centres.

It is important that you should distinguish be-
tween these, because the functions which they
perform are vastly different. The afferent nerves
are the nerves of sensation. All sensations are
transmitted by means of the afferent nerves. If
they were destroyed, all impressions would also
cease to be given. You could then see nothing,
hear nothing, feel nothing, in short could have no
knowledge whatever of the external world ; for it
is on these afferent nerves, carrying as they do
impressions from without inward, that our knowl-
edge of the external world depends. But the
efferent nerves proceed from within outward, and
as we have already learned, perform a very differ-
ent function. These are the nerves of motion.
When I move my arm, or walk across the room.

THE BRAIN. 157

or engage in any form of bodily activity, the
motion is produced by these efferent nerves, and
without them I would be capable of no activity
whatever.

Well, now, let us examine the outer extremity
of one of these afferent nerves, which we said
was the nerve of sensation. Near its outer ter-
mination and immediately beneath the point at
which the impression is given, the axis, or that
part of the fiber which we said a moment ago
was the essential part of the fiber, escapes from
its sheath and divides itself into the minut-
est threads, forming a most complex network.
These threads are so great in number, and so
completely penetrate every portion near the sur-
face of the body, that no part, however small,
is untraversed by them. It is impossible to punc-
ture the skin even with the finest needle with-
out touching the expanded axis of some nerve
fiber.

Let us now trace one of these fibers — say one
from the finger here, inward. You will find it
soon apparently uniting with other fibers as it
approaches the nerve centre here in the spinal
cord. Entering the spinal cord it touches a cell.

158 THE BRAIN.

We shall speak of these cells further on. This
much, however, ought at this place to be said, —
the moment the nervous force set into operation
by a sensation touches the cell, it is magnified or
intensified, and is thus able to perform the work
of stimulating more properly the efferent nerve
with which it here comes in contact. Now the
nerve that we have been tracing is, as we said, a
nerve of sensation. It carries the sensation to
the cell here. But notice here something else.
From this same cell there runs an efferent nerve
back to the muscles. This efferent nerve, you
will remember, is the nerve that produces motion.
You see that we have here now three things :
the nerve carrying the sensation to the cell ; the
nerve of motion running from the cell to the
muscles, and the cell itself.

Let us now see, if we can, how motion is pro-
duced by the action of this threefold mechanism.
Let us say now, that inadvertently I touch my
finger to the sharp point of a needle or to some
heated surface. By that action a stimulus is
given to the afferent nerve running to the cell.
Here the stimulus, intensified by the cell, now
stimulates in its turn the nerve running to the

THE BRAIN. 159

muscles, causing them to contract, and as a result
my hand is withdrawn. This is called automatic
action, for you perceive that in the act of with-
drawing my hand my will is not called into oper-
ation ; that act is performed indeed before I am
aware of it, and hence is called automatic motion,
because it is motion independent of the will, and
is to be explained by the spontaneous action and
reaction of the nerves and the cells. And now at
this point I am anxious that you should not over-
look one thing, and that is the real manner in
which this automatic motion is produced. What
causes the automatic motion of my arm when
inadvertently I touch my finger to a heated sur-
face ? You say it is caused by the contraction of
the proper muscles. And when I ask what caused
the muscular contraction, you say it was produced
by some nervous force operating along the nerves
that traverse the muscles, and thus the movement
of the arm is caused by muscular contraction.
This muscular contraction is caused by the ner-
vous force operating along the nerve. And when
I ask you what caused the nerve thus to act, you
say it was caused by some stimulus. Now that
is what I want you to remember. It was the

i6o THE BRAIN.

stimulus given to the efferent nerve that in some
manner caused it to act ; its action caused the
contraction of the muscle, and this contraction
produced the movement. The important thing,
then, you see, is the stimulus ; for when you have
that you have all the rest. Well, now, if you bear
in mind that the original cause of motion is this
stimulus given to the efferent nerve, we are pre-
pared to understand how voluntary action, as well
as involuntary, is produced. For there is mus-
cular motion that is not automatic. I can move
my arm in any direction without the movement
being caused by some sensation or stimulus given
from without. I can move it by an act of will.
See now how this becomes possible. Here is the
motor nerve ; and we have just learned that in
order that motion in my arm be produced, this
nerve must be caused to act, in other words must
be stimulated. Suppose now, that instead of its
being stimulated by means of some sensation
brought from without through the afferent nerve,
it should be stimulated from within along the
track of some nerve running down here from the
brain, motion again would result ; for the thing
necessary is simply to stimulate the nerve of

THE BRAIN. i6i

motion and the movement is produced. That
nerve may be stimulated, as I have shown you, by
a sensation from without, but it may also be stim-
ulated through the nerves running down the spinal
cord, and in either case you have motion. And
thus you can see how it is possible for the will
to operate upon the body. Affording as it does
in some way a stimulus to the proper efferent
nerves, it is possible for us to direct the motions
of the body and to accomplish all of those move-
ments which we call voluntary movements. Now
it is not a part of our task at present, to define
the nature of the stimulus by virtue of which vol-
untary motion is produced. It is sufficient for
the present to show that such a stimulus is cer-
tainly given ; and to call attention to the fact that
without such a stimulus we could not possibly
be capable of voluntary movement. Nor does the
question specially concern us as to how it comes
that so small a stimulus is able to produce a force
so out of proportion to itself. For when my arm
is moved suddenly, the force of movement is cer-
tainly many thousand times greater than the force
of stimulation could possibly be ; and yet if we
remember that in the muscles themselves there

io2 THE BRAIN.

resides a vast amount of potential energy, and
suppose that the effect of the stimulus is simply
to liberate that energy, we can account for the
vast disproportion between the energy given off
as the result of a certain stimulus, and the intrin-
sic energy of the stimulus itself.

An illustration of this may be found in the
steam-engine. As it stands there at the station
ready for its journey, within its boiler there resides
a vast amount of potential energy — an energy
which if called out is able to move the train of a
score of cars, each loaded with many thousand
pounds of freight. But when the throttle is
opened and motion is communicated to the ma-
chinery, the force that is now put into operation
is vastly out of proportion to the force exercised
by the engineer in opening the throttle ; but as
the opening of the throttle simply served to liber-
ate the energy resident in the boiler, so does the
stimulus given to the motor nerves serve but to
release the energy resident in the muscles. The
fact that such a stimulus is given, whether it
comes from without, as in the case of automatic
motion, or from within, as in the case of volun-
tary, this is the fact that we arc now to bear in

THE BRAIN. 163

mind, as well as the other, namely ; that the very
small initial force required for the change is just
as impossible to conceive without adequate cause
as the whole force itself would be.

We come now to the cell.

Insignificant as the cell apparently is, we must
not overlook it, for it performs several very impor-
tant functions.

Two purposes are served by the cell. First,
they unite the nerves at their inner termination.
Secondly, they serve the purpose of magnifying
the impressions given by the nerves. Suppose
that I should touch very lightly a piece of velvet,
or the down of a feather, the impression would be
very slight ; I could not feel it, perhaps, if the
sensation were not magnified or intensified in
some way. Now this function is performed by
the cell. It magnifies the faint impressions,
whether made upon the nerves of sensation, or
on the nerves running down from the brain to
the motor nerves, and thus makes it possible for
even the smallest stimulus to accomplish its work.
Like the nerves, these cells are made up of three
parts. The outside consists of a pulpy matter.
Inside of this is a roundish body called the nu-

164 THE BRAIN.

cleus ; and still inside of this are often to be
found one or more bodies called nuclei.

These cells range from one-three -hundredth
to one-three-thousandth of an inch in diameter.
Every nerve terminates in one of these cells.
Now in tracing the nerve some time ago, we
traced it only to the cell here in the spinal cord ;
but it did not terminate there. Crossing the cell
it passed upward along the spinal cord to the sen-
sorium. This is called the sensorium because all
sense impressions are recorded there. There
would be no sensation or feeling of any kind if
the nerves did not reach this portion of the brain.
For instance, if the spinal cord was severed here
in the region of the cervical vertebra, there would
be no sensation in any of the parts below that
point. You might produce automatic motion in
the parts below the point of lesion if you were
to stimulate the proper nerves, just as you had
before, but you could not have feeling. The sen-
sorium is the seat of feeling. It is in it that the
nerves from the ear, the eye, the mouth and the
body all terminate. Had I a slate here and five
of you were to write your different experiences
upon it, the slate would serve the same purpose

THE BRAIN. 165

for you that the sensorium does for the five
senses. The sensorium is the slate upon which
the nerves write their various impressions. Here
the optic, the olfactory, the auditory and all the
in-coming nerves record their impressions. But
now suppose that after five of you had recorded
your experiences on this slate, I should take it up
in my hand, read over what you had written and
meditate on all the facts recorded. Suppose that
I should arrange these facts into some system ;
notice the bearing of each on the other, and draw
conclusions out of them, then I would perform
the same labor that is performed by the cerebrum.
Looking down, if I may so speak, on the record
as made by the senses on the sensorium, just as I
would look at the writing on the slate, the cere-
brum takes up these facts one by one, and shapes
them into ideas. The cerebrum, then, is the seat
of thought and ideas, just as the sensorium is the
seat of feeling. But while the cerebrum is the
seat of thought, it is evident that for the facts
upon which it thinks, it is dependent largely upon
the impressions given in the sensorium. And
yet the cerebrum deduces facts and evolves ideas
the basis of which were not given in the senso-

1 66 THE BRAIN.

rium. We have thoughts, conceptions and ideas,
the bases of which could not possibly have been
furnished by the five senses. Let us see. Con-
ceive for a moment that you knew absolutely
nothing- concerning the world that lies about you
— you are blind and deaf, cannot taste, smell or
feel. Conceive yourself as completely shut off
from the external world as is Laura Bridgman,
of whom you have doubtless read. Suppose now
that by some means or other it were possible for
five persons to inform you of all that could be
seen and heard and tasted and felt in this match-
less world of ours. One would tell you of all
that could be seen — what a field of thought would
be opened for your meditation, and how many
ideas would come that you had never had before !
Another would tell you of all that could be heard
through the ear, of sound and melody and human
speech, and so on until you had some conception
of the entire range of human sensuous knowledge.
What a field would be opened up to you ! Now
just the knowledge that you would receive were
your friends to tell you of all that could be heard
and tasted and seen and felt, is in reality brought
to you by the five sense:. Yet all this is empiri-

THE BRAIN. 167

cal knowledge ; and as in swift thought you this
moment sweep the entire field of this empiric
knowledge, you cannot but realize that it is but a
part of what you really know. You have knowl-
edge the basis of which even your five senses
never brought to you, and no man can persuade
you that your knowledge is circumscribed by the
narrow limits of mere sense impressions. Whence
comes your consciousness of freedom .? Is there
freedom in nature, and did you learn there that
you were free } Whence comes your conscious-
ness of responsibility 1 Did you learn that from
nature? Is nature responsible, and if so, to whom?
Whence comes your knowledge of spirit, of the
unseen, and of God ? This knowledge comes not
through the senses. You never gained it through
the eye or the ear, or through any other sense
faculty. What, then, is the organ of this higher
knowledge ? It is almost universally conceded by
writers on mental physiology, that the cerebrum
is the seat of these higher, and indeed of all ideas.
Let me ask your attention now for a moment to
an examination of the cerebrum, the seat of intel-
ligence, and to a study of that organ by virtue of
whose operation all thought is at all possible.

1 68 THE BRAIN.

Immediately within the skull, from which it is
separated by several thin membranes, lies that
portion of the brain known as the cerebrum. It
is terminated below by the cerebellum, and covers
the sensorium, with which it is united by numer-
ous nerve fibers. It is composed of two sub-
stances— the white and the gray. The white
substance makes up by far the greater portion of
the brain. If you were to examine this white
substance under* the microscope, you would find it
made up of nerve fibers similar to those of which
we spoke a moment ago. Above this white sub-
stance, lining it on the exterior, lies what is called
the gray substance of the brain. This gray mat-
ter is a mixture of white fibers with cells. These
cells imbedded in the white fibers, give to this
substance its gray appearance.

In your study of any plate of the brain, you will
notice that this gray matter is folded and furrowed ;
just as the glove which we wear follows the outline
of the closed hand, running up here and down
there between the fingers, so this gray substance
covers and follows the white in all of its convolu-
tions. It is easy to see that this folding of the
gray substance gives it a greater extent of surface

THE BRAIN. 169

than would be afforded did it simply conform with
the interior of the skull. This cake of gray mat-
ter, running down here and there, folded as we
have said, contains about three hundred square
inches of surface. Its averas-e thickness is one
tenth of an inch, and it is nearly a compact mass
of cells. It has been estimated that in the gray
substance of a brain of average size, there would
be two hundred millions of these cells. As every
cell has at least two fibers attached to it, and often
many more, we are safe in estimating the number
of fibers in the brain at forty-eight hundred million.
Now I said a short time ago, that the gray matter,
or external substance of the brain, was composed
almost entirely of cells. But over this cake of
gray matter, following it in all its foldings, lies a
thin network called the pia mater. This network
is made up almost entirely of blood vessels, by
means of which blood is carried to the fibers and
cells. This network of blood vessels covers the
brain so completely that every part of it is abun-
dantly supplied with blood.

Well, now, you have before you the material
organ concerned in mental activity. You have
here the white substance, composed of fibers, the

170 THE BRAIN.

cake of gray matter with its fibers and cells, and
finally this thin membrane that carries the blood
to every portion of the brain. Let us see now, if
we can, how mental operations are carried on by
the mutual working of these three things. All
those who have studied philosophy are aware that
galvanic electricity is produced from three sub-
stances— zinc, copper, and acid. When a piece
of zinc is united with a piece of copper, and both
immersed in acid, you have galvanic electricity as
the result. Now if you do not carry that illustra-
tion too far, you will find in it an analogy that will
help you to understand, in some measure, the
probable working of these various parts of the
brain in the processes of thought. Let the zinc
represent the white fibers, the copper the cells,
the acid the blood, and you will have what might
be called a mental battery, which under the control
of an intelligence back of it is capable of evolving
thought, as the galvanic battery is capable of
evolving electricity.

But you ask. Is there any proof for all this }
Ls there any proof that the fibers and cells of the
brain have anything to do in the production of
thought, or that even a remote analogy exists

THF': p. RAIN. 171

between the production of electricity and the pro-
duction of thought ? I answer : Yes ; with this
qualification. Back of the galvanic battery there
stands no intelligence ; back of the mental battery
there does. And yet, that the character of the
thought produced depends in some measure on
the condition of the organ, is beyond question.
I suppose that you are well aware that what we
call clearness and dullness of thought, depends
largely on the condition of the blood. Let the
arteries send vitiated blood to the brain, and
mental activity will be impaired. Take an illustra-
tion. You are shut up in an illy ventilated and
crowded room, the air of which has become thor-
oughly vitiated. In a very short time you lose
the power to think clearly, a dullness comes over
you, and your mind refuses to act as it does at
other times. Go out and inhale for an hour or
two the pure air ; you now find that your dullness
has left you, and that you can think as clearly as
usual.

Now why did you lose the power of clear and
sustained thought in the first case } The answer
is, because of the vitiated state of the blood, re-
sulting from the breathing of impure air. When

172 THE BRAIN.

you went out, and the blood was rendered com-
paratively pure again, you could think again
clearly. The blood that flows to the fibers and
cells must be pure, or thought cannot be clear,
incisive and sustained. Come back to our e:al-
vanic battery, and you will see the analogy between
the production of thought and the production of
electricity. Weaken the acid in the battery, so
that it cannot act as it should on the zinc and
copper plates, and the electricity produced is but
small in quantity. Strengthen the acid so that it
can act properly on the plates, and the electric
current becomes strong. Vitiate the blood that
acts on the cells and fibers, and that makes it pos-
sible for them to perform their functions, and you
weaken the powers of thought. Reverse the pro-
cess and the effect is also reversed.

We have now, I think, learned something of the
probable manner in which thought is carried on in
the cerebrum by the concurrent action of the
fibers, the cells, and the blood, and are able at the
same time to see upon what grounds the brain has
been called the organ of the mind.

We now come to a very important fact, and I
want to call your attention particularly to it be-

THE BRAIN. 173

cause of the intimate bearing that it has upon the
subject under discussion. I speak of "The locali-
zation of the cerebral functions." By this it is
meant that in any certain mental operation, not
all of the brain is brought into use, but only a cer-
tain portion of it. Only, if you please, that specific
group of fibers and cells which in the brain is
devoted to that specific purpose. That as each
key in the instrument is used in the production of
a certain tone, and is used alone when that special
tone is required, so with the various groups of
fibers and cells in the brain. In each group a
certain function is located. That group of fibers
and cells, for instance, which is brought into oper-
ation in the study of music, is a different group
from the one used in the study of astronomy.
The one brought into operation in acquiring a
knowledge of mathematics, is a different group
from the one used in the study of language, and
so on. For every function of which man is capa-
ble, there is also somewhere in the brain a group
of fibers and cells answering to it.

Suppose for a moment that one should set him-
self to the task of acquiring a knowledge of the
Greek language. A group of cells and fibers,

174 THE BRAIN.

many thousand in number, are brought into use.
These constitute the receptacle of that special
knowledge. And as he would go on to increase
his knowledge of the Greek, the combination would
increase in its number by the addition of still other
fibers and cells that had been brought into use,
something after this manner : When the meaning
of a Greek verb would be learned, certain cells
with their fibers would be charged with it. When
the meaning of a noun would be learned, other
cells with their fibers would become the receptacle,
and so on. But if such an one were to study music,
an entirely different set of fibers and cells would
be brought into operation. And thus when any
new acquirement is attained, some special group
is called into requisition, and henceforth becomes
the receptacle of that special knowledge. Just as
each key in the piano is employed in the produc-
tion of a certain tone, so each group in the brain
is employed in its own specific kind of knowledge.
Perhaps that statement should be qualified some-
what. If each branch of our knowledge were
entirely distinct from every other branch, that
statement would be true. But such is not the
case ; and, inasmuch as no class of facts can be

THE BRAIN. 175

said to stand distinct from another class, we may
perhaps say that in cases where two thoughts are
similar, the same group with some modification of
its arrangement or combination is used in the
contemplation of both. As the musician in the
production of a certain chord will sometimes use
keys brought into use in the production of other
chords, so may certain cells and fibers of one group
be used in connection with the fibers and cells of
another group, and yet each group so far as itself
and the specific work which it does, are con-
cerned, stands distinct from every other. But see
now the proofs upon which this doctrine of the
localization of functions depends. It is based on
three facts : —

The first is the fact established by Broca. He
showed that lesion in the posterior part of the
third frontal convolution of the left hemisphere
resulted in aphasia.

It was in 1861 that Broca established that fact
and proved that the faculty of articulate speech
was located in this portion of the brain, and that a
diseased condition of this part resulted in aphasia,
or loss of speech.

Secondly, on the results of experiments per-

176 THE BRAIN.

formed by Dr. Ferrier on the cortical substance of
the cerebrum and other ganglionic centers of the
brain. It was found by Ferrier that when an
electrode of a battery was applied to certain parts
of the brain, movements precisely similar to those
of the living state could be produced. Expres-
sions of emotion, of pain, the perfectly natural
movement of any part, were all produced when
the proper point in the hemisphere was touched ;
thus showing that each function has its locality.

Thirdly, it is a fact attested by the experience
of every student, that when the mind having be-
come wearied by intense application to any specific
subject turns to another, a sense of relaxation is
experienced. This could not be the case were the
same groups used in the contemplation of both,
and can only be explained on the supposition that
in the investigation of one subject a certain group
is brought into requisition, and that when the
mind turns to another, the exhausted group ceases
to be used and a fresh group is employed.

From these facts we are warranted in saying
that, *' There is no departure from fact or strong
probability in assigning special and distinct tracks
for the currents connected with each separate
sensation, idea, emotion, or other conscious state."

THE BRAIN. 177

But observe now that when such a nervous
track has once been estabUshed, by the bringing
into operation of a certain group of fibers and
cells, then ever afterward the reproduction of the
same idea, thought, or emotion, results when the
same group is again brought into action. Thus
we have what we call memory. In every act of
memory the same group of fibers and cells, which
in the first instance was employed in the thought,
or conscious state, is but again brought into
operation.

Suppose that, to-day, you for the first time be-
come acquainted with a certain fact of history.
You learn, for instance, that on the first, second
and third days of July, 1863, the Battle of Gettys-
burg was fought, with Gen. Mead in command of
the Federal, and Gen. Lee in command of the
Confederate forces. You learn further that the
losses on either side were a certain number in
killed, wounded and missing. Now in the acquire-
ment of that information certain fibers and cells
were brought into use, and a certain nervous track
established. If now, after long years, you wish to
recall these facts, how do you do it ? I reply :
By bringing those same cells and fibers into action

178 THE BRAIN.

which were employed when the information was
being acquired. The moment they again act,
there is brought before the mind the facts which
you wish to recall and of which they were made,
as it were, the especial receptacle. Strike a key
of the piano. It gives out a certain sound. When
the piano was made by the mechanic, the wire
corresponding to that key was constructed so as
to give out that sound and no other, and thus
whenever you strike it, it gives out precisely the
same tone. Stimulate a group of fibers and cells
that has once been employed, and it gives out the
thought or experience with which it was originally
charged. Stimulate it again, and it gives out the
same thought or impression. Stimulate it again,
after long years have intervened, and it gives out
the same thought still. That is memory. For
every new acquirement, then, I bring into use a
new combination of fibers and cells ; and in each
act of memory I only cause them to act again, and
thus I have brought before me once more the fact,
a knowledge of which was once gained and which
I now wish to recall. The action of these fibers
and cells reproduces it, just as the wire in the
instrument always reproduces the same tone. I

THE BRAIN. i79

remarked at the commencement of this discussion,
that as an examination into the structure of the
piano, an inspection of its wires and keys, their
action and relation, would help us to understand
how music is produced when the keys are touched
by the musician, so also would an examination of
the brain with its intricate mechanism, let us into
the secret of how action and thought might result
when its groups of fibers and cells are brought
into action. For the brain also is an instrument
upon which something plays, as the musician does
on the instrument. I think, therefore, that we
are not going too far when we say that an expla-
nation, adequate at least in some degree, has been
made of the instrument concerned in the produc-
tion of action and thought. We have seen how
that either may result when the appropriate fibers
and cells are brought into operation, and have
learned how that in their reaction, memory finds
its explanation. Thus we have examined the
instrument ; we have seen how both physical and
mental action are brought about when these deli-
cate groups are brought into play.

But mark : The great problem still remains un-
solved, for it is one thing to explain the instru-

i8o THE BRAIN.

ment, it is quite another to point out the musician
whose existence is as much a necessity for the
production of melody as is the instrument. We
have seen what the result would be if certain keys
of the cerebral key-board were touched ; but we
have not yet accounted for the melody, inasmuch
as we have as yet failed to explain the manner in
which these cerebral keys are touched in the pro-
duction of action and thought and memory.

It is clear that if certain nerves are stimulated,
voluntary and involuntary action will follow. It
is clear that if certain groups of fibers and cells
are stimulated, thought follows. It is equally
clear that if groups having once been brought
into action in the attainment of any acquirement
are again made to act, the result of that action is
memory. But how now are these fibers and cells
stimulated, and what is it that stimulates them }
These, let me ask you to bear in mind, are the
supreme questions. In getting an answer let me
ask you to come back once more to our illustra-
tion in the instrument. There are two ways in
which sound is produced from the instrument :

The first is by some foreign substance acting on
and depressing the keys. A weight or a book may

THE BRAIX. i8i

fall upon the key and a tone be produced as the
result.

The second way in which sound may be pro-
duced from the piano is by the depression of
the key by the finger of the musician. Just so
with this complicated instrument out of which
action and thought come. Its keys also may be
caused to act in two ways : first, they may be
stimulated by some external impression. I may
feel something, I may hear something, I may see
something, and by this the fibers and cells may be
stimulated and thus caused to do their work, yet
all that is but the foreign substance that presses
the key of the piano. It is possible for me to
shut my eyes, to close every avenue through which
any sense impression can come, and by the action,
not of that which is without, but of something
solely from within, stimulate these nerves and
fibers out of which thought and action come.
Aye, it is in such moments as these, when with
the external world shut entirely out and every
avenue along which external impressions can
come effectually closed, that the loftiest and the
sublimest thoughts come as it were like an inspi-
ration. Granted that the cerebral keys are stimu-

1 82 THE BRAIN.

lated by external impressions, then I ask, What
stimulated them when no external impression was
present ? For, mark you, these keys must be
stimulated, and without a stimulus neither physi-
cal nor mental action can result.

You may have tone by permitting the foreign
substance to fall upon the key of the piano, but
you cannot have melody. For the soul-stirring
melodies of a Mozart or Beethoven the keys must
be swept by the fingers of an intelligent musician.
So, likewise, you may have action, physical and
mental, as the result of external impressions
affecting the keys of fiber and cell. For, observe
that anything that causes them to act, also causes
them to perform their special functions. But
consecutive, intelligent, profound thought, you
can have alone as the keys in the brain are
touched by an intelligent musician. You per-
ceive that we are now brought face to face with
our former question, namely. Is there something
that plays on the fibers and cells of the brain as
the musician does on the instrument } You will
all agree with me when I affirm that it is possible
for us to direct our thoughts, but do not overlook
the fact that that admission is of immense conse-
quence here.

THE BRAhV. 183

You say that a man is responsible for his
thoughts, and all the world agrees with you in the
assertion. We can think of what we choose. By
the operation of our wills we can concentrate our
recollection upon a certain event and search
out its details, along with all its collateral circum-
stances, to the exclusion of everything else. But
if we can think of what we choose, then it also
follows that we can bring into operation any group
of fibers and cells according as we wish. For illus-
tration : if I wish to think of some fact connected
with the Greek language, I must use a certain
group of fibers and cells. If I turn my attention
to music, I bring that particular group into oper-
ation which is the storehouse of my knowledge of
music ; and so on. The fact, then, that we can
think of what we choose, proves that we have
power to set any group into action ; for without
their action we cannot think. And now I ask
again the question. Is there something within that
plays on the fibers and cells as the musician does
on the instrument .-^ It is self-evident that the
key on the instrument yonder cannot depress
itself. There is something to depress it, or there
can be no sound. But if the key of the instru-

iS4 THE BR Am.

ment cannot depress itself, but needs the finger of
the musician to produce from it its tone, so neither
can the keys of fiber and cell depress themselves.
They also need the finger of the intelligent musi-
cian. What you may call this invisible musician
is a matter of small consequence. You may call it
the soul, you may call it the ego ; but that such an
agent is present is beyond question. For if melody
proves the presence of a musician to touch the
keys that are in harmony, then thought proves the
presence of a musician to touch the cerebral keys
that also are in harmony. And if melody proves
that the keys of the piano are touched, so does
thought prove that there is something that plays
on the brain as the musician does on the instru-
ment. There is then something that depresses
the fiber and cell keys of the brain.

But what now is this something } My friends,
to speak of this agent that stimulates the cerebral
groups as a material something, a force analogous
to electricity, is nothing short of downright fool-
ishness. To assume that position is to betray
a lamentable ignorance of two facts, either of
which is fatal to such a hypothesis.

First, The nerves are without insulation. For

THE BRAIN. 185

this reason they afford no conduction for the elec-
tric currents, and experiment has proved that
electricity applied to them, instead of following
along their course, distributes itself throughout
the body.

Secondly, This stimulus acts as no mode, or
form, or mood of physical force acts. From these
facts it follows that that something by which the
stimulus is given, cannot be a material something.

But we may go one step further, and affirm that
that something is intelligent. As the musician
selects those keys which are in harmony, so does
this something use one group in preference to
another in volitional thought. This something
therefore exercises choice. I ask now the meta-
physician. What is the highest attribute of an
intelligent being } He answers. Choice ; the
power to choose one thing in preference to an-
other, the ability to weigh and decide in favor of
one thing over against another. But if choice is
an attribute of intelligence, then is this invisible
something, this unseen musician, intelligent. We
have then two facts which are scientifically certain :

First, There is something that plays on the
fibers and cells of the brain, as the musician does
on the instrument.

1 86 THE BRAIN.

Secondly, That something which corresponds to
the musician is intelligent.

But if there is an invisible, intelligent something
that plays on the fibers and cells of the brain, as
the musician does on the instrument, then that
something must be independent of these fibers
and cells, as the musician is independent of the
instrument.

Standing, then, upon those two propositions,
first, that there is something that plays on the
fibers and cells of the brain as the musician does
on the instrument, second, that that something
is intelligent, I can look through the clouds
which are soon to encircle me and catch a glimpse
of the beyond.

What though I shall drop my body as I enter the
shadow } I shall drop it as the butterfly drops
the chrysalis. If the soul plays on the fibers and
cells of the brain as the musician does on the
instrument, then it must be independent of them
as the musician is independent of the instrument.
And if the destruction of the instrument cannot
be the destruction of the musician, because he is
independent of the instrument, then the destruc-

THE BRAIN. 187

tion of the body is not the destruction of the soul,
because it is independent of the body.

"The world recedes I it disappears!

Heaven opens to my eyes ! — my ears

With sounds seraphic ring :

Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly I

O, grave ! where is thy victory ?

O, death I where is thy sting ? "

THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

What if the earth
Be but the shadow of heaven and things therein
Each to the other like, more than on earth is thought?

— Milton.
There is a spiritual body. — Paul.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

Science and revelation alike testify that the
present visible universe with all that belongs to it
shall at length be dissolved. There will come
a time when the sun shall have burned itself out ;
when the moon, having grown old, shall fail to
make her nightly journey through the sky ; when
the stars, one after another, shall grow dim and
then go out forever ; and when the earth with its
mountains and its seas and all that belongs to it
shall cease to be. The time will come when —

" The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all that it inherit, shall dissolve ;
And, like this unsubstantial pageant, faded.
Leave not a rack behind."

It is in such a world that man finds himself,

with nothing around him that is permanent, with

everything hastening to its dissolution. And yet

face to face with a dissolving universe, man has

191

192 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

always stood firm in the conviction that he is an
exception to the universal order. Amid the perish-
ing, he has ever clung to the thought that he at
least is immortal.

Near four thousand years ago, sitting in his tent
door, conversing with his three friends. Job spoke
his belief in his immortality: "Though after my
skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I
shall see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and
my eyes shall behold and not another."

Those who have moulded the thinking of every
nation, both ancient and modern, have taught
that man is immortal. Homer sang it into the
hearts of the Greeks, and Socrates put it into
their philosophy. Confucius taught it to the
Chinese, and Zoroaster to the Persians. In the
religious books of India we find this prayer ad-
dressed to the great Soma :

'' Where there is eternal light, in the world
where the sun is placed, in that imperishable,
immortal world, place me, O, Soma !

"Where life is free, in the third heaven of
heavens, where the worlds are radiant, there make
me immortal. Where wishes and desires are,
where the bowl of the bright Soma is, where there

THE SriRITUAL BODY. 193

is food and rejoicing, there make me immortal.
Where there is happiness and deUght, where joy
and pleasure reside, where the desires of our
desire are attained, there make me immortal."

The Indian in the early wilds of America had
also his rude ideas of a world beyond. Far off to
the west, where he saw the sun set, beyond a
dreadful deep and rapid stream over which from
hill to hill there lay a narrow, slippery passage,
there were the delightful hunting grounds. In
the frozen zone the Greenlander talks of a land
where perpetual summer reigns, where all is sun-
shine, and there is no night ; where good water
and birds and fish and reindeer are, without end.
The way to this delightful place is down a fright-
ful precipice, all stained with the blood of those
who have gone down before ; and if, perchance,
this precipice is descended in winter or in tempest,
and the soul do but slip, it perishes utterly.

And thus in all ages and among all nations man
has believed in his own immortality ; and though
he has seen the perishable nature of everything
around him, he has ever experienced an inner
certainty that to the universal order he at least is
an exception.

194 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

Nor has man come into the possession of this
belief through tradition. Wherever and whenever
he has sat in confidential communion with his own
soul he has heard it speak to him of his immor-
tality. But simple and cheering as this conviction
is when possessed in its native purity, as a result
of certain phases of modern speculation and so-
called scientific thinking, it has come to lose much
of its significance.

To the mind unbiased by false systems of
thinking, a future life has always meant a con-
tinued existence of the self-conscious individual.
It has demanded that as in this life man is in the
possession of a self-conscious and an individual
existence, so must he be in the future. Disrobed
of all that hinders and limits him here, like the
butterfly that shakes off its chrysalis and then
rises into a higher and freer state, so man, freed
from the limitations arising out of his association
with his present tenement, shall come into a freer
and higher existence, yet retaining his personal
identity. It is needless to say that a conception
such as this is alone able to satisfy our ideas of
a real immortality, and, answering as it does every
hope and longing, it alone is comprehensive.

THE SPIRITCAL BODY. 195

And yet, in the discussion of the subject before
us, it will be necessary to take a hasty glance at
two other conceptions that now set themselves as
rivals to this in modern thinking.

The first is the one offered from the side of the
materialist. Man's immortality, according to this
conception, finds its basis in the conservation of
matter. Lons; asfo it was discovered that matter
is imperishable, and the law of the conservation of
matter established as a fact of science. When
a mass of matter was changed from one state into
another, as is done when a piece of mineral is
changed from the solid into the gaseous form, it
was found by the use of the balance, that no
particle of it was lost. The weight of the gas
was precisely equal to the weight of the mineral
out of which it had been evolved ; and although its
form was changed, yet no particle was destroyed.
Numerous experiments with matter in its various
states have confirmed the fact that by no process
at the command of man can matter be altered in
quantity, or annihilated. By heat and pressure it
may be changed from one state into another ;
a solid may be changed into a liquid, a liquid
into a gas ; the process may be reversed, and yet

196 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

the amount of matter abides the same precisely in
quantity.

You have heard of the experiment performed by
Faraday. One day a workman in his laboratory
accidentally dropped a little silver cup into a jar
containing acid. In a short time it disappeared.
Among the inexperienced chemists then working
under the direction of the great scientist, the
question was discussed whether the cup could ever
be restored. One said it could not ; that being
now dissolved and rendered imperceptible it was
destroyed. In the midst of the discussion, Fara-
day entered the room, and learning what had hap-
pened, he put certain chemicals into the jar, and in
a few moments every particle of the silver was
precipitated. He lifted it out a shapeless mass,
sent the precipitate to a silversmith, and the cup
was restored. And thus by various processes
known to the chemist, the form or state of matter
may be changed. A silver cup may be dissolved,
held in solution, become invisible, but in no case
can matter be destroyed. Well, now, when this
law of the imperishability of matter was discov-
ered, materialists at once took it up and said,
"This will explain man's notion of immortality;

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. I97

matter is immortal." " In the material of his
present body man finds the promise of his immor-
tality. True, these material particles now ex-
isting in his body shall come into other relations.
In the dissolution of the grave, these particles
that now enter into the constitution of your and
my bodies shall cease to exist in their present
relation, and each molecule shall go out into the
universe to enter into new relations ; but then,
the particles, the atoms, cannot be destroyed.
Man is matter ; matter cannot cease to exist ;
hence man as matter is immortal,"

The defect in this view, you at once see, is that
it denies to man a personal, individual immortality.
Not as the ego that now is, shall man live on.
Not as a person, retaining identity ; but in a mil-
lion different forms — in plant and earth and air,
neither of which can be self-conscious — the man
who now is, is to live. To say that this doctrine
denies man's immortality, is to utter a truth that
is self-evident ; for if we do not live on as indi-
viduals, we cannot be said to live on at all.

The second view is that which finds the promise
of man's immortality in the persistence of the
species. '' The species," say the advocates of this

198 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

view, ''must be forever perpetuated." ''The indi-
vidual may die, but humanity will still live on in
the generations that shall come and go forever."
Now it is a wonderful truth, and fatal, if you
please, to the theory of evolution, that species are
persistent. The mollusk that suns itself on the
ocean beach to-day, is identical with its sister of
the same species, that lived on the shores of the
once almost shoreless ocean. Practically, in species
there is no variation.

When the ancient Egyptians embalmed their
dead, they put with them seeds, which now for
five thousand four hundred years have retained
their vitality. And these, when taken out of their
sepulchers and planted to-day, spring up into
plants, the flowers of which in color and every
feature, are identical with those that now make up
the flora of the Nile valley. The plant imbedded
in the sedimentary deposits more than fifty thou-
sand years ago, presents no differences from the
same species that now bloom in our valleys and
gardens, and man is the same in posture and in
visage, in mind and in power, that he was when
first he walked the earth. It is true that the
species are persistent, immortal. But fatal as that

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 199

fact must be to a theory I need not name, yet in it
man is asked to look for his immortaUty. And
when this fact of the persistence of the species
was demonstrated, it was said in some quarters,
" Here is the solution of the problem of the future
life." " Man as man shall live on forever. The
individual shall die, but the species will remain.
In the perseverance of the species, therefore, man
is to look for his immortality."

It is said that on the shores of the Dead Sea,
on verdant trees, there once grew most beautiful
apples. In crusted by the salt of that salty air,
they were gradually transformed, and though re-
taining their natural color and appearance, they at
length became a mass of stringent salt. Attracted
by their beauty, the traveler would hasten to the
spot, press the seeming fruit to his lips ; but in-
stead of the satisfaction promised, it crumbled into
ashes and bitterness. And so with the view of
immortality just presented. Attractive as it may
seem when first contemplated, to the soul longing
for a life beyond, it affords but the most bitter
delusion. What though the species do live on }
If the individual is lost, there can be no real im-
mortality. In either of these views the inspiration

200 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

that comes out of man's belief in a future life is
wanting. Life is robbed of its sublime signifi-
cance, indeed becomes empty and meaningless.
Nothing short of the perpetuity of the individual,
and jDossessed of his self-consciousness, can be
made to answer not only our higher hopes, but
also our rational conceptions of what a continued
existence for man must be. Real immortality
must be the immortality of a personal life.

Well, now, we have gone far enough to see the
one single requirement to which every true con-
ception of man's immortality must of necessity
answer. Every true conception of immortality
must embrace in it personal identity. The indi-
vidual of the future must be one with the individual
that is now. He must be recognized as the same
person, and as the same person he must be
able to recognize himself. As we unhesitatingly
affirm ourselves as one with the individual which
in any moment of the past we recognized our-
selves to be, so, in a future state, must each one
be able to identity himself as the same individual
that existed here.

It follows, then, that this identity is to be tested
and proven first of all by memory.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 201

See how this comes. We are now certain that
we are one with the individual who by our name
and in the possession of our individual conscious-
ness lived years ago. And yet in the case of the
aged man, a thousand changes have come ; a thou-
sand scenes have passed ; the years have come
and gone ; youth has come and gone ; Life's winter
has been reached, and the frail form now leans on
the staff of old age. And yet that man recognizes
himself as the same one who once as a boy,
played with his companions on the hillside, in the
meadow, and beside the brook, now seventy years
aero. But how comes he to recoo-nize that fact,
and how does he prove it ? Is it because he finds
himself in the same environment ? It cannot be
that. The objects which as a boy he knew, are
perhaps no more. Every landmark has changed.
Perhaps he is even far removed from the place in
which his childhood was spent. Does he recognize
himself as the same individual by his body .'' In the
worn-out frame that now is, no man could recognize
the child that once played so buoyantly. And
yet there is something in that man which connects
the present with the past, and enables him to
affirm himself to be the same. It is memory.

202 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

Take that away, and no man could be certain that
he is the same individual he once was. Through
all the physical and psychical changes that have
come and gone, through all circumstances, memory
has continued, connecting his present consciousness
with his past ; and thus, though now an aged man,
he recognizes himself as the same individual. It
is memory that assures him of his personal identity.
It must therefore be that if in the future life we
are to recognize ourselves as the individuals now
in the present, such recognition is to be had by
virtue of memory; it is memory alone that can
bridge between the present life and the future.

But in order that the identity of the individual
be conserved^ character and disposition must also
be perpetuated. If, for instance, a radical trans-
formation of character and disposition were in any
wise to be effected, then could not the individual
in the future life either recognize himself or be
recognized as the individual that existed here }
Very long ago Socrates saw and gave utterance to
this truth. "■ There is a tale, Callicles," says
Socrates, " which I have heard and believe, from
which I draw the following inferences : Death, if
I am right, is in the first place the separation from

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 203

one another of two thing's, soul and body ; this and
nothing else. And after they are separated they
retain their several characteristics, which are much
the same as in this life. The body has the same
nature and ways and affections, all clearly dis-
cernible. . . . And in a word, whatever was
the habit of the body during life, would be dis-
tinguished after death, either perfectly or in a
great measure, and for a time. And I should infer
that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles."

And now with these facts before us, each of
which I deem to be self-evident, we are brought
to see the necessity of a something by virtue of
which all this may become possible. We are
brought to see that no discussion of the question
of man's immortality can be thorough or compre-
hensive in which the matter under discussion is
ignored. In short, we are led to the conclusion
that a spiritual body is a postulate of man's im-
mortality. It may perhaps be, that with some,
and from the theological side, the question of
man's immortality may be discussed separately
and without reference to that which such immor-
tality of necessity implies. But it is not so when
we come to its discussion from the scientific side.

?o4 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

Considered from this, immortality demands the
existence of an organ, in other words, a spiritual
body. The one is a postulate of the other.

Indeed, it would seem that even Paul was
unable to discuss the one without reference to the
other. In the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians,
in his treatment of the resurrection and our future
existence, in order to dispel certain objections, he
finds it necessary to throw into the midst of his
discussion, in order to explain the possibility of a
future life, the expression, " There is a spiritual
body." In his judgment, without the statement of
that fact, the doctrine of the resurrection and a
future life could not be understood. It comes,
therefore, that alone as the presence of a spiritual
body now resident in man is admitted, can this
immortality be proven.

Let us now see how this appears. We have just
been saying that immortality implied personal
identity ; that the person in the future life must
recognize himself as one with the person that is
now. We have also just seen that this identity
or oneness of the individual in both states is to
be tested, first of all by memory. But that being
the case, a spiritual body follows as a necessity.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 2 05

For how are \vc to explain the continuance of
memory when we have ignored or denied the ex-
istence of a spiritual body ? Memory implies an
organ, an organ on which impressions whether
physical or mental have been recorded. For. ob-
serve that physiological science has established
the truth that our recollection of past events is
dependent on certain traces left behind on some
enduring substance hid away in the cerebral
regions ; that each thought we think is accom-
panied by certain molecular displacements or mo-
tions in the organ of the mind, and that these
are in some way stored up in that organ so as to
produce what we call physical memory. That
without such an organ connecting the individual
with the past, no one could possibly have memory
on the one hand, or a conscious individual exist-
ence on the other. The necessity, therefore, of
a spiritual body or organ, some durable sub-
stance connecting the individual of the future state
with the individual of this, becomes apparent.
And thus you see that in every comprehensive
discussion of man's immortality, the question of
the spiritual body cannot be ignored. In view
of this fact, two questions, far-reaching in their
importance, are before us.

2o6 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

First, Is man in possession of such a spiritual
body ?

Second, What is its nature and character ?

Take the first. Is man now in possession of
a spiritual body ?

You know it is sometimes said ''that the writ-
ers of that Book whose doctrines and whose pre-
cepts many of us have learned to love, were not
philosophers, were not men of science," We never
get through hearing of ''the ignorant fishermen"
whom Jesus picked up on the Sea of Galilee and
made of them disciples. Often has it been more
than insinuated that superstitions and groundless
fancies common enough among fishermen, have
crept into the sacred Word, and because found
there, are believed by the ignorant who call them-
selves disciples of the Nazarene.

Against the statement made by Paul, " There is
a spiritual body," the same objection has been
urged. Was it not a mere notion of his own }
Was it not a superstition current among his own
class, and which never had and never can have
foundation in fact } So some have talked of the
spiritual body.

But, my friends, it is a truth which in these

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 207

times ought not to be lost sight of, that one by
one these so-called superstitions of the Galilean
fishermen, as men have come to understand the
universe better, have also come to be recognized
as facts in science. And if they were ignorant,
then it must now be admitted that they always
spoke better than they knew. It is true that these
men did not pretend to be men of science ; but it
nevertheless remains that they somehow understood
matter and mind and force as no man has under-
stood them since. It has been a long and weary
march, but out of the darkness and into the light
we are gradually moving on and up to where the
disciples stood, and our conceptions of the uni-
verse are gradually becoming identical with those
that the disciples held. Scientific men are coming-
nearer to the unseen to-day than uninspired men
ever came before ; and the reality of that unseen,
and its connection with the seen, are no longer
disputed. It is Shakespeare who makes Hamlet
say : —

" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreampt of in your philosophy."

To the truthfulness of that statement, Science,

2o8 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

with a profounder veneration then ever before,
nods its assent. And yet I shall not ask you to
take the statement of Paul, in relation to the
spiritual body, as final. Apart from Scripture,
there are two very conclusive proofs of its exist-
ence. The first of these may be termed the
psychical.

It is a fact revealed in every man's conscious-
ness that, through all physical changes he retains
his personal identity. Now, Science tells us that
within a certain fixed period, not more at most
than seven years, every particle of the body has
been eliminated and other particles substituted.
In other words, within this period these physical
bodies of ours undergo a complete and radical
change. Every particle of every tissue in this
period is transformed ; not a cell or corpuscle, not
an atom of bone or nerve or muscle or brain fiber
or connective tissue, is the same at the close of
seven years as entered into the framework of the
body at the commencement of that period. No
particle of the body of the child at seven years is
the same as that with which it began life. It fol-
lows, then, that in the case of the youth of fourteen
years, every particle of his physical system has

THE sriRrruAL body. 209

twice changed and given place to others. At
twenty-one this change has been thrice effected ;
and in the case of the one who has reached the
age of seventy, this change has been effected no
less than ten times. At seventy years a man has,
therefore, been in possession of ten different
bodies, each entirely separate and distinct from
any of the preceding. The change that goes on,
finds its illustration in the various characters
assumed by the player in the theater. In a par-
ticular scene, in the impersonation of a certain
character, a certain garb will be assumed, while
in another scene under a different garb, an en-
tirely different character is represented ; and so
on during the course of the play. Changing his
costume to suit the characters he aims to repre-
sent, a single player will, to the eye of the un-
initiated, appear to be as many persons as the
characters he has assumed. But to the initiated
the identity of the person in each of the characters
is apparent. The external may have changed, the
tone of voice may have varied, the attitude and
gesture may have been different, and yet back of
each character stands the one and the same indi-
vidual actor. It is so with man durin^^ the course

2IO THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

\ of a long life. The physical may change ; no atom
of the body may remain the same ; and yet through
/ it all, he recognizes the certain truth that he is
still the same person. But now the fact that each
individual knows himself to be one through all
these changes, and recognizes that his identity
through life is a certainty in spite of the flux of
the particles of the body, points us to something

/ in him that has remained the same through all the
changes. Beneath the matter that has come and
gone, a something has persisted, and, by virtue of
this, man recognizes his identity and is able to
affirm in spite of the fact that every particle of
his visible and tangible body has changed, that
something has remained, and that that something
is himself.

It is certain, therefore, that this something
which has endured is not the gross matter of
his body. It is not this that has remained un-
changed, but something back of this ; a something
not subject to the laws that govern ordinary
matter, neither indeed can be. And thus out of
man's consciousness of personal identity comes
an argument for the existence of his spiritual
body : a something within man that continues

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 211

through every change ; that cannot be base matter
as we know it, and that by virtue of its persist-
ence, enables each of us to affirm our identity.
Take away this something ; leave nothing but the
base matter of the physical body, and no man
could affirm himself, after a period, to be the
same individual that he once was.

But I desire to call your attention to another
fact, and to another proof for the existence of
the spiritual body. It may be called the physio-
logical. A few moments ago I called your atten-
tion to it in an incidental way. Among those
who have the best right to speak, it is stoutly
held that mind must also have its organ ; that
without a substance of some kind, upon which
mental and sensuous impressions are made, con-
scious thought could not be. It is likewise a set-
tled question in mental physiology, that memory
implies and demands such a substance. If you
journey yonder on the shores of the Nile, you will
find monuments covered with inscriptions. The
deeds of heroes and the annals of empires long
since passed away, are traced there upon the
imperishable rocks, and men to-day, studying out
the meaning of those strange characters, read

2 12 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

the history of nations that are no more. Those
rocks bearing those inscriptions connect the pres-
ent with the past, and stand there as history's
organ of memory. Destroy these rocks, and
with them perishes the knowledge traced upon
them. Just so it is in the case of memory.
Without some substance back of the mind upon
which impressions may be traced and knowledge
recorded, memory could not be ; for it is alone as
the mind reads these impressions, long since made
on this enduring substance, that it becomes pos-
sible to recall past events, or to retain knowledge
that has once been ours. Now observe that it is
in this way modern physiological science feels
itself compelled to account for the fact of mem-
ory, and in this way does it explain our power to
recall the past and to retain knowledge of which
we have once come into possession.

You see, then, that memory implies two things.
First : It implies an organ upon which impres-
sions are made. Second : It implies the conserva-
tion of that organ. For wlicn the organ perishes
it must be clear that the ability to recall perishes
with it.

And thus we have two very important and

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 213

significant facts bearing on the question of the
existence of the spiritual body in man. It is
certain that this organ upon whicli memory
is dependent, cannot be made up of the gross
matter out of which the tangible fabric of the
body is built, for if this were the case, it would
not persist. It would then be subject to the
laws that govern the gross matter of the body,
and, inasmuch as this matter is gradually giving
way and being replaced by other, it follows that,
after a period of seven years, it would be impos-
sible for any one to recall anything that had taken
place prior to that period. And yet we are cer-
tain that the reach of memory is not thus circum-
scribed. Memory knows no time limit. The man
of seventy years recalls the scenes and the inci-
dents of his youth as readily and as accurately as
those of yesterday. It must, therefore, be that the
substance or organ belonging to memory has been
conserved. Amid the repeated changes of every
material particle it must have held its place. It
cannot, therefore, be of a nature the same as the
gross matter of the body. It cannot be matter
as we know matter, but must be something spirit-
ual and unchansreable in its character.

2 14 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

And thus, when man has come to look closely
into the facts of his own consciousness, he has
come to recognize the necessity of a spiritual
substance or body, in order that he may interpret
the facts of consciousness as they exist. He has
found himself in the possession of a conscious-
ness of personal identity. He has found himself
in possession of memory, and, driven to account
for these facts, he has found the existence of a
spiritual body as necessary to their solution.

But we come now to our second inquiry :
What is the character and nature of this spiritual
body ?

It is very manifest that such a body is now
resident in man. But its character is not so
easily determined as is the fact of its existence.
And yet we shall not look in vain even into the
question as to its character. But you must not
be surprised if it is said that this body of which
we have been speaking is material in its nature.
You know that Herman Ulrici, who has looked
into our question more deeply than any other of
whom I have knowledge, spoke of the spiritual
body as ''a perfect fluid." He conceives it "as
similar to the ether, only not like the latter con-

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 215

sisting' of atoms, but absolutely continuous, and
that this fluid extends out from a given center,
permeating the whole atomic structure of the
body, operating instinctively and in cooperation
with the vital force."

I am aware that in the minds of many there
exists an almost instinctive aversion to every
attempt at the materialization of that which we
have always conceived as the immaterial within
us. And yet it must be admitted that much of
our prejudice arises out of the fact that we have
studied matter altogether in its lower and baser
forms. When the term matter is used, at once
there come before the mind conceptions based
upon our knowledge of matter in its lower forms.
We think of weight, of inertia, and the like, as
the essential properties of matter ; and imagine
that the only forms in which matter can exist are
the forms which it assumes in earth and water
and plant, and the various objects which make up
the visible and tangible world.

We say that weight is an essential property of
matter, and have long been repeating over and
over to ourselves that " no two substances can
occupy the same space at the same time." Of

2i6 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

course, if our conceptions of matter are such as
these, if our notions of it have all been formed
by our study of matter in but two or three of its
forms, we shall have very grave objections to any
theory in which the spiritual body is conceived of
as material in its character. And yet it is very
clear, in the light of recent investigation, that our
ideas of matter must now be very greatly modi-
fied, and other conceptions that we have had,
entirely given up. Indeed, by those who have
studied most into its nature, it is now admitted
that of the essence, character and possibilities of
matter, we perhaps know less than we do of any
other one thing. But this much is certain. The
better we come to know it in its higher forms, the
more evident is its independence of those laws
and conditions which hitherto were supposed to
control matter universally. In the language of
Professor Crookes, matter, as we pass from the
lower to the higher forms, more and more loses
its ordinary properties and more and more ''as-
sumes the character of radiant energy."

Let me read here a few sentences from " The
Life and Letters of Faraday," concerning the
nature of matter in its higher forms. "■ If we

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 217

conceive," says Faraday, " a change as far beyond
vaporization as that is above fluidity, and then
take into account also the proportional increased
extent of alteration as the changes rise, we shall,
perhaps, if we can form any conception at all, not
fall far short of radiant matter ; and, as in the last
conversion many qualities were lost, so here, also,
many more would disappear."

" As we ascend from the solid to the fluid and
gaseous states, physical properties diminish in
number and variety, each state losing some of the
properties which belong to the preceding state.
When solids are converted into fluids, all the
varieties of hardness and softness are necessarily
lost. Crystalline and other shapes are destroyed.
Opacity and color frequently give way to a color-
less transparency, and a general mobility of par-
ticles is conferred. Passing onward to the gas-
eous state, still more of the evident characters
of bodies are annihilated. The immense differ-
ences in their weight almost disappear. The re-
mains of difference in color are lost. Transpa-
rency becomes universal, and they are all elastic.
They now form but one set of substances, and
the varieties of density, hardness, opacity, color,

2i8 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

elasticity and form, which render the number of
soUds and fluids ahiiost infinite, are now supplied
by a few slight variations in weight, and some
unimportant shades of color."

You see, then, that as we ascend from the
baser to the higher forms of matter, there is a
gradual resignation of those properties which we
commonly regard as belonging to matter. Weight
is, at least in a great measure, lost. The prop-
erty of impenetrability is lost, and it is even now
admitted that matter in its higher forms may
occupy the same space with matter in its lower.
Do you say that that cannot be } Open Professor
Tait's recent book on '* Properties of Matter,"
and bear in mind that at present no one has a
better right to speak of matter, its properties and
possibilities, than he. The statement to which I
specially call your attention is that in which he
reviews the atomic theory as propounded by
Boscovich. In his statement of the theory,
Boscovich said that, on account of a peculiar law,
no two atoms could be conceived as occupying the
same space at the same time. To this last state-
ment, Professor Tait objects in these words :
*' But this seems an unwarranted concession to

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 219

the vulgar opinion tliat two bodies cannot co-exist
in the same place. This opinion is decluced from
our experience of the behavior of bodies of sen-
sible size, but we have no experimental evidence
that two atoms cannot coincide." Now I want
you to fix your attention on that last statement,
because it will be of immense importance by and
by when we come to study the spiritual body of
Christ as it was revealed prior to his ascension.
There is also a very significant passage in one of
the lectures of the deservedly famous Dr. Thomas
Young, to which I must also call your attention
before we pass on. He is speaking of the differ-
ent orders of being, and, in this connection, he
says: ''And of these different orders of beings,
the more refined and immaterial appear to per-
vade freely the grosser. We know not but that
thousands of spiritual worlds may exist unseen
forever by human eyes. Nor have w^e any reason
to suppose that even the presence of matter in any
given spot, necessarily excludes these existences
from it."

And thus we come to the conclusion, looking at
the question purely from its scientific side, that
the spiritual body may be material in its nature.

220 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

If matter in its higlier forms may freely permeate
matter in its lower, then is there no intrinsic im-
probability that the substance of the spiritual body
may be material though it occupies space seem-
ingly occupied by the grosser matter of which the
physical body is made up. But that the matter of
the spiritual body and that of the physical is the
same in state cannot for a moment be admitted.
Something of the laws that govern matter in its
ordinary state we know. These, if governing the
higher forms of matter, would preclude it from
entering into the constitution of the spiritual body.
But we are certain that matter in its higher forms
is not under the dominion of those laws that govern
it in its lower, nor does matter in its higher forms
behave at all as it does in its lower. The sub-
stance, therefore, of the spiritual body, while doubt-
less material in its character, partakes also of the
character of spiritual being by virtue of which it
is very properly called " spiritual body."

But I ask you now to turn from the field of what
may be called the merely conjectural, to that of the
more positive knowledge of the spiritual body. I
dare not say that only once, but I may positively
affirm that once at least in history, a spiritual body

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 221

was seen here on the earth. I speak of the resur-
rected body of Jesus. Nor do I offer an apology
for making reference to the resurrected body of
Jesus, or for asking you to a scrutiny of that body
as it appeared during the forty days intervening
between his resurrection and his ascension. The
time has passed when an apology was demanded
for making reference to the great facts of the res-
urrection of Jesus in a scientific discussion. You
know that De Wette was the leader of the acutest
school of German rationalism in his day. So thor-
oughly did he set himself against the acceptance
as truth of anything the verity of which could not
be clearly established by the logical method, that
he was called "the universal doubter." And yet
it is De Wette who says that " the fact of the
resurrection, although a darkness which cannot be
dispelled rests on the way and manner of it, cannot
itself be called in doubt." The fact, therefore, of
the resurrection of Jesus stands side by side with
the other well-accredited facts of history ; and ac-
cepting it as such we have a perfect right to get
what licfht we can from it even in a scientific dis-
cussion. But look at those facts for a moment.
On the morning of the third day the sepulchre

222 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

of Joseph of Arimatbea is found empty. No man
had seen Jesus go forth. No one knew what had
become of him. Some time afterward on the way
to Emmaus two disciples meet a stranger. For
a tim.e he journeys by their side, but they know
not who he is. He afterward sits down with them
to meat, and then for the first time, is the mys-
tery dispelled, and in the person of the stranger
the two disciples behold the resurrected Jesus.

Go back, now, to Jerusalem. The enemies of
the disciples are vigilant. Rumors are afloat that
the disciples are plotting insurrection, and every
secret meeting is watched with suspicion. But
there, in a little room with doors carefully locked
to shut out any chance intruder, are assembled ten
of the disciples. Every avenue of entrance or of
exit is sealed and the disciples are congratulating
themselves on their security. Suddenly Jesus
stands in the midst of them ; the closed doors offer
no barrier to his incoming. There he stands be-
fore the amazed disciples, recognized by all as their
risen Lord. The account of what transpired is
very interesting and significant. Naturally the ten
arc affrighted. The sudden appearance of Christ
in his corporeal body, the recollection that in order

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 223

to preclude the entrance of any one they had
closed and sealed the doors, but contributed to
their fright in finding themselves thus confronted
by a visible form. At first they thought a spirit
was standing before them. Now notice the words
of Christ : "■ Why are ye troubled, and why do
doubts arise in your minds ? See my hands and
my feet, that it is I. Handle me and see, for a
spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have."
Then he shows them his hands and his side ; and,
as though further to assure them of his identity,
he ate a piece of broiled fish in their presence.
Now I want you to notice four things :

The body that appeared to the disciples in that
closed room was the same body that was taken
down from the cross and entombed in the sepulchre
of Joseph of Arimathea. You have the proof for
that in the fact that as such it was recognized by
the ten disciples ; that body was no longer base
matter, as we know it. Had it been such it could
not have passed through the closed doors behind
which the disciples had shut themselves ; that
body was not spirit, was not a mere apparition, but
was substance. ''Handle me and see, for a spirit
hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have."

224 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

Though matter, the passage of Christ's body through
closed doors can find its explanation alone in the
fact of its being matter in its higher form, and
brought into this form, out of the lower, by virtue
of its contact with the spiritual.

Do you say that this passage through closed
doors was miraculous, and that for this reason it
can teach us nothing in regard to the nature of
the spiritual body ? My friends, that depends
upon what you mean by the term miraculous. If,
with Archbishop Trench, you hold that the true
miracle is not the infraction of a law, but the neutral-
izing of a lower law for a time by a higher ; if with
you '' the true miracle is but a higher and a purer
nature, coming down out of a world of untroubled
harmonies into this world of ours, for the purpose
of bringing this back again into harmony with the
higher ; if in the miracle this world of ours is but
drawn into a higher order of things, and the laws
producing it are but laws of a mightier range and
a higher perfection, though not contrary to natural
laws," then was the passage of the body of Jesus
through closed doors a miracle. In that act the
lower laws governing base matter were licld in sus-
pension by the higher laws that hold in the realm

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 225

of the spiritual. But we do not for a moment
admit that Jesus made use of any other power than
that which belongs intrinsically to the spiritual
body in order to pass through the closed doors.
That act was an exhibition of the possibilities be-
longing to the spiritual body as being a higher
order of existence. That power belongs to sub-
stance in its higher forms.

Turn back now and read again what Faraday
said in relation to matter in its higher forms, and
as you read it let me ask you also to bear in mind
that it is now admitted that matter in its higher
forms may occupy the same space with matter in
its lower, hence may penetrate and pass through it.
Here are Faraday's words : " The person who
admits the radiant form of matter, will show you
a gradual resignation of properties in the matter
we can appreciate as the matter ascends in the
scale of forms." Take, too, in this connection, the
statement of Dr. Thomas Young : " And of these
different orders of being the more spiritual and
immaterial appear to pervade freely the grosser.
Nor have we any reason to suppose that
even the presence of matter in any given spot nec-
essarily excludes these existences from it."

2 26 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

Well, now, with these higher conceptions of mat-
ter and its possibilities, as taught by the acutest
of scientific thinkers, does it seem to you to be an
impossibility that the resurrected body of Jesus
should be able to pass through closed doors, or
that, though matter, it should be able to pass
through matter ? And, in the light of these facts,
does it not rather seem that that act belonged to
the category of possibilities belonging to the spirit-
ual body, rather than that it was miraculous as
some count the miraculous ? My friends, that the
resurrected and spiritual body of Jesus partook of
the nature of the material cannot be held in doubt
by one who carefully reads the narrative of his
appearance. Those words forever stand against
such a conclusion : " Handle me and see, for a
spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have."
True, a spirit hath not flesh and bones, but a spirit-
ual body has. Partaking both of the nature of
matter and of spirit, though material on the one
side it IS not limited as is ordinary matter. The
qualities of spirit have been communicated to it,
transfiguring and glorifying it, so that through
doors of brass or walls of adamant it can pass as
readily as though these spaces were unoccupied.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 227

Light as the desire that prompts, it can also mount
upward, transport itself from place to place — the
willing instrument of the spirit of which it is the
organ.

And thus in our study of the nature of the spir-
itual body, as revealed in the manifestations of
Him whose resurrection and ascension cannot be
called in question, we get some conception of its
real character and possibilities. But, you say,
''There is a wide difference between the resur-
rected body of Jesus and the spiritual body resi-
dent in man. No part of that body was lost.
Identically the same body, part for part and parti-
cle for particle, was raised, for no part of it saw
corruption."

You ask, ** Do you mean, then, to say that the body
of Jesus in the very last moment preceding his death
was a spiritual body, seeing that it was this body
that was raised and that afterward ascended } "
That is a very pertinent and yet a very difficult
question. But if we are willing to submit our-
selves to the lead of the profoundest and most
far-sighted theologians, we shall find a way out of
the darkness. Among the acutest of theological
thinkers this is the view taken : that the body of

2 28 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

Jesr.s during bis earthly ministry was like our
own, corruptible, subject to the same wants, sus-
ceptible to the same conditions, and mortal ; but
that during his life of unsullied purity and contact
with God, a gradual change went on, so that even
that body once really material, became more and
more spiritual in its character. By the leavening
and transforming power of the indwelling spirit,
the baser material was gradually eliminated, so
that the processes of decay which in your case
and mine must go on in the dissolution of the
grave, for the elimination of the grosser material
of our bodies, went on in the case of Jesus during
life.

By virtue of unhindered contact with the spirit-
ual, the corruptible gradually put on incorruption,
the mortal gradually put on immortality, and, the
material gradually giving place, was at length
entirely merged into the spiritual body. At the
moment of the ascension this transformation was
completed.

Let me read here a few sentences that I have
taken from the ** Dogmatics of the great Danish
theologian, Dr. Martensen " : —

" All the four gospel accounts of the resurrcc-

THE SPTRrrUAL BODY. 229

tion, seem to introduce two contrasted representa-
tions concerning the nature of the resurrected
body of our Lord. The risen one seems now to
live a natural human life, in a body such as he had
before his death. He has flesh and bones, he cats
and drinks ; again, on the contrary, he seems to
have a body of a spiritual, transcendental kind,
which is independent of the limitations of time
and space. He enters through closed doors, he
stands suddenly in the midst of his disciples, and
as suddenly becomes invisible to them. This con-
tradiction which occurs in the appearance of the
risen one during the forty days, may be explained
upon the supposition that during this interval his
body was in a state of transition and of change,
upon the boundaries of both worlds, and possessed
the impress and character of both of these worlds.
Not until the moment of the ascension can we
suppose his body was fully glorified and free from
all earthly limitations and wants, like the spiritual
body of which Paul speaks."

You see, then, that while in the estimation of
this author there went on a gradual change of
transformation of the material into the spiritual,
he confines the period of transition more particu-

230 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

larly to the forty clays intervening between the
resurrection and the ascension, and holds that
such a transformation was not completed or the
spiritual body perfectly revealed until the moment
of the ascension. Not so, however, with the early
church. The view then prevailed that immediately
after the resurrection his body was the spiritual
body of which Paul speaks, and it was very prop-
erly maintained that the sudden appearances and
disappearances of the risen Saviour could not be
explained if after his resurrection his body had
not been spiritual.

But that this process of transformation, this
gradual leavening of the material by the spiritual,
went on during the life of Jesus prior to his cruci-
fixion, cannot for a moment be held in question.
No less an accurate thinker than Julius Muller,
face to face with the facts of the transfiguration,
admits that these facts cannot be explained except
on the supposition that the change was already
going on. Here are his own words: "Though
the resurrection must be regarded as the turning
point, when the glorifying and spiritualizing pro-
cess in Christ's body began to approach its con-
summation in the ascension, we cannot limit the

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 231

process within those two events. It may have
been going on gradually even before his death,
without in the least deteriorating from the reality
of his earthly body. There is one event indicat-
ing this in the Gospel history — I mean the
transfiguration."

Well, now, let us put these facts together, in
order that we may see what we have.

We have here in the case of Jesus of Nazareth,
a material body. We have this body, under full
contact with the resident spirit, gradually losing
its baser material until the stupendous scenes of
the transfiguration, the various appearances and
disappearances, the passage through closed doors,
and finally the ascension become possible. And
yet, that that body, so far as it served as an organ,
was immaterial, cannot for a moment be admitted ;
for to admit that would make the words of Jesus,
" Handle me and see," and those to doubting
Thomas, " Reach hither thy finger and behold my
hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it
into my side," of no meaning.

And now that such shall be the character of our
spiritual bodies is a very necessary conclusion.
Not indeed of the baser matter of the present

232 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

shall our future bodies be, but of the higher. Of
the baser we shall be rid in the dissolution of the
grave, but the higher we shall retain. What a
life of complete fellowship with and indwelling of
God did for the body of Jesus, the grave must do
for us. But the body that shall be is now. The
higher of the present shall be the substance of
the future body. It is in the light of such a con-
ception that the words of Paul in relation to the
spiritual body can be interpreted. Speaking of
the present body he says, *' It is sown a natural
body, it is raised a spiritual body." Plainly, in his
conception, the body that now is is the body that
shall be. "There is" (not there shall be) "a spir-
itual body. For we know that if our earthly house
of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a build-
ing of God, a house not made with hands, eternal
in the heavens."

As Christ arose from the dead with a glorified
body, the first-born among many brethren, so
shall man, disrobed of the gross matter that now
inswathes his true body here, come forth a spirit-
ual body.

And right along here there lies a truth of
immense ethical significance. We are told that,

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 233

in their unscientific way, the ancients, accounting
for the brilliancy of the diamond, said that it was
caused by the sunbeams that the diamond had
absorbed. For thousands of years lying under
the fiery gleam of the sun, there was imparted to
these jewels a radiance which, retained somehow
in their substance, accounted for their present
brightness. And while in the case of the diamond
the ancients were in error, they came very near a
truth that has since become an established fact in
science. For when Prof. Becquerel discovered
the phosphorescent qualities of calcium sulphide
and then attempted to account for its phospho-
rescence, it was found that certain substances
have power of assimilating properties belong-
ing to certain other substances, and by virtue
of this power they are able to manifest certain
phenomena not naturally belonging to themselves.
Steel becomes magnetized in contact with the
magnet and takes to itself properties not belong-
ing to it before. Calcium sulphide, after exposure
to the sun, assumes to itself a property that before
did not belong to it and becomes lummous in the
darkness.

And is it therefore an unwarranted assumption.

234 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

and without its analogy in nature, when we say-
that the same thing may go on in the case of the
base matter now entering into the constitution of
our bodies ? Expose the matter within our bodies
to free contact with Him who is spirit, and the
result will be the assimilation of spiritual qualities
and the elimination of the baser material. What
went on during the life of Christ in the gradual
elimination of the baser material and in the per-
fection of the spiritual body, within certain limits
has gone on in man, and may go on in man still.

In the name of science it may be affirmed that
what is taken from the flesh is given to the spirit,
and what is taken from the spirit is given to the
grosser flesh. It is certain that the consciousness
of humanity, however it may be explained, bears
testimony to that fact.

The judgment of mankind, were it uttered,
would bear testimony that between the matter of
the body of a Nero and that of an Elijah, there is
the vastest difference in character. In the one,
the higher and more spiritual assumed the charac-
ter of baser matter. In the other, the baser
material had gradually given place to the higher
and the more spiritual.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 235

There is a very significant passage in Arch-
bishop Trench's book on miracles, that I must
quote in this connection. You will find it at the
close of the chapter entitled, '* The Walking on the
Sea." This is the passage : " In regard to this
very law of gravitation, a feeble and for the most
part unconsciously possessed remnant of his power
survives to man, in the well-attested fact that his
body is lighter when he is awake than sleeping."
And this is the way he accounts for it : *' From
this we conclude that the human consciousness as
an inner center works as an opposing force to the
attraction of the earth and the centripetal force of
gravity, however unable now to overcome it."

To the recent statements and their proofs that
in certain states of moral trance the body is
actually lighter than in those states we call normal,
I need hardly call your attention. That field of
science has not yet been sufficiently explored.
And yet no less an authority than Prof. Crookes,
gives it as his opinion that in certain states of
moral trance the body is actually lighter than at
other periods, and if this be the case he says fur-
ther, ''its causes must be natural." 1 do not share
in the sneer in which some have indulged at this

236 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

Statement of Mr. Crookcs, that, " if the body in
states of moral trance is hghter, the causes must
be natural." For, my friends, we are coming to
recognize the truth that there are no arbitrary
lines separating the temporal from the eternal, the
seen from the unseen, or the natural from the spirit-
ual. We are coming to recognize that the one
passes over into the other by natural, orderly laws.
For one, I cannot but believe that, when matter
in its higher states is better known, and when the
effects on that matter in contact with the spiritual
are better understood, we shall find it to be en-
dowed with possibilities of which we do not even
dream. Certain it is that even before the ascen-
sion, and even before the crucifixion, the body of
Jesus manifested powers clearly belonging to the
spiritual body. He disappeared ; he walked on the
sea ; and as at Capernaum, so elsewhere the won-
der of the disciples was expressed in the question,
" Rabbi, when camest thou hither t " And on Iler-
mon, in the hush and shadow of the midnight, he
gave to the disciples an exhibition .of his higher
nature, in order to fortify their faith against the
hour of his crucifixion.

It is true tliat by some all this may be set over

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 237

to the realm of the visionary. It may be said that
this transformation of the material into the spiritual
in contact with the spirit of God which we have
affirmed as going on in man, is but an empty
notion. It may so be; but I want you to observe
that, by that judgment, you are left to account for
the then unexplained fact, that by all men and in
all ages these notions have not been regarded as
visionary, but real. You have then to account for
the persistence of a judgment in favor of which
there never was nor can be a single fact.

Let those who choose deny these possibilities to
the higher matter in contact with the spiritual in
man. There are those who will not and cannot.
And to these there is herein revealed a truth, in
the light of which the translation of Enoch and
Elijah, as well as the ascension of Christ, can be
better understood. It can then be understood
how that with bodies like our own, and by virtue
of their walk with God, they were at length able
to mount upward ; how that the realm over which
the laws that govern matter in its lower forms was
gradually overstepped and transformed into the
spiritual body, they could pass upward into the
unseen.

238 THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

I know that you will pardon mc, if, in conclud-
ing, I ask you to look hastily at a certain deduc-
tion, which, while not belonging properly to the
discussion, yet necessarily comes out of it. In our
consideration of the spiritual body there has come
unsought an answer to another question. I speak
of the question of our after recognition.

William Cullen Bryant, in a poem dedicated to
his departed wife, puts a question that you and
I are constantly putting to ourselves, and to which
we are ever seeking an answer.

For thirty years the wife of the poet had been
the ministering angel of his home, and for ten had
preceded him to the other side ; amid the loneli-
ness that was his he wrote and dedicated to her
this poem : —

"How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,

When all of thee that time could wither, sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread ?

" For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not,

Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eye the tender thought.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 239

"Will not thy own meek heart demaiul me there,
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given ?

My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
And must thou never utter it in Heaven ?

" Yet, though thou wearest the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,

The same fair, thoughtful brow and gentle eye,

Lovelier in Heaven's sweet climate, yet the same ? "

The answer to Bryant's inquiry we have had.
In the body that now is, we find the body that shall
be. Stripped of the defects and hinderances that
inhere in its baser matter, retaining its higher
material elements, the body that now is shall
pass iiiLu the unseen.

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