DEATH RESUR- RECnON BJOBKLUND W, -A UNIVERSUY OF C*UfORN»» UNIVERSITY OF CALlcOK.^iA. oM DIEGO LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA 3 C't>Vf(U- DEATH AND RESURRECTION. Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2008 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcli ive.org/details/deatliresurrectioOObjor GUSTAF JOHAN BJORKLUND Death and Resurrection FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE CELL-THEORY GUSTAF BJORKLUND Translated from the Swedish by J. E. FRIES THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY LONDON AGENTS Kbqan Paul, Trench, Trubner &Co., Ltd. 1910 Copyright by THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. 1910 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. NEVER in the history of human thought has the interest in the soul and its immortality been greater and keener than now. The leading in- vestigators of the Society of Psychical Research have taken up the problem of enquiring into the facts of spiritual ex- periences, telepathy, forebodings and kindred phenomena. The result has been rather negative, for, while we have received innumerable single facts, they all suffer from the common fault that they are too subjective in their nature to furnish a proof that could be object- ively valid. Moreover, many reports come from witnesses whose mental con- stitution is under the suspicion of being pathological, and so their value is prac- tically null. vlll PREFACE. Of much greater importance would be an investigation as to the possibility of immortality on the basis of scientific data, but, strange to say, this method has been almost entirely lost sight of by leaders of the S. P. R. If we could form a definite theory as to the nature of the soul based on exact observation, we would be enabled, first, to explain man's instinctive yearning for immor- tality; and, secondly, to form a definite idea of the condition of the soul after death. Thus we could exclude all the many mistakes which are now made, and which originate through an errone- ous and partly superstitious notion of the relation of the dead to the living. The result is shown in the reports of the S. P. R., abounding in statements of ghost stories, which can be regarded only as a continuation of folk-lore. As a matter of fact, the work of the S. P. R. has so far provided very little help toward a better comprehension of im- mortality. Among the men who have done the PREFACE. ix work of a sympathetic reconstruction of the idea of immortality on the basis of science, there is to be mentioned, next to Fechner, Gustave Bjorklund, a Swed- ish scientist who is well known in his own country, but who has been almost entirely ignored in other lands. The ob- vious reason of this is the inaccessibil- ity of his writings, which have not yet been translated into English. We do not believe Bjorklund's solu- tion is the right one, but we do be- lieve that he has made a contribution to the philosophy of religion which ought not to be ignored. His case is similar to Fechner's. We have pub- lished Fechner's book On Life After Death and we are glad to present the views of Bjorklund on Death and Resur- rection. Dr. Cams has sketched his views re- peatedly in The Soul of Man, in Whence and Whither, and two articles published in The Monist, with special reference to Fechner. They show also why Bjorklund's belief is unacceptable. X PREFACE. Nevertheless we publish Bjorklund's book because we heartily sympathize with his endeavor to justify those senti- ments which instinctively point out that death is not a finality, and that the pur- pose of life is not limited to the span of our days between the cradle and the grave, but that it has a further and fuller significance. We hope that Bjorklund's book will be welcomed as the contribution of an earnest and prominent scientific think- er on the important question, "If a man die, shall he live again 1" THE PUBLISHERS. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. JOHAN GUSTAF BJORKLUND was bom the tenth of November, in the year 1846. His parents were farmers in very small circumstances. His father seems to have been endowed with a good business head and, ultimately, be- came a real estate owner on a small scale, first in one city and then in Up- sala, the principal university town of Sweden. Poverty was familiar to Bjorklund throughout his life. Doubt- For the biographical data of Bjorklund's life I am indebted to S. A. Fries, D. D., well known in continental theological circles as a scientist of rank and founder of the international Con- gresses in the interest of the History of Relig- ion. (See Theologische Literatur Kalender 1906; Wer ist's? 1908.) Dr. Fries, who is one of the leading ministers in Stockholm, has done more in speech and print than anybody else to introduce Bjorklund to the reading public. xii PREFACE. less one reason for this was that his consuming interest in sociology and philosophy prevented him from taking those higher examinations, which in Sweden are indispensable for obtain- ing any official position. He studied, however, for several years at the Uni- versity of Upsala, but followed no recognized course, and it was only be- cause of the ardent persuasion of his friends that he took a degree as B. A. In 1884, Bjorklund moved to Stock- holm, where he remained until his death, in 1903. At the University of Stock- holm, he took the courses in biology and natural science, and won for himself the admiration and lasting friendship of many of the professors of that institu- tion. During this time he mainly sup- ported himself by teaching philosophy, and among other pupils, afterward re- nowned, was Ellen Key, the well-known Swedish writer on sociology and the woman question. The most absorbing interests during this period were, how- ever, sociology and the peace movement. PREFACE. xiil To broaden his views and study social conditions in general, Bjorklund under- took several protracted journeys to Eng- land, Germany, Belgium, and France. From 1887, Bjorklund began to pub- lish the fruits of his untiring labor. His first work was, "The Fusion of the Na- tions." In that, as in "The Anarchy of Evolution" and "Peace and Disarma- ment," Bjorklund throws his over- whelmingly convincing statistical re- sources and solid scientific learning in favor of an ultimate universal, but more especially European union of the na- tions. Toward this goal it is necessary to steer, according to Bjorklund, if a general "Anarchy of Evolution" is to be avoided; for that is the condition that will prevail, if the state neglects to carry out an organization of society that shall keep step with the degree of ma- terial culture reached. "Because dur- ing the most profound peace, a nation suffers from its own army the same im- peding influences that in time of war is due to the hostile army." XIV PREFACE. The last mentioned book, "Peace and Disarmament," at once made Bjorklund famous. It was translated into French, German, English, Polish, Dutch, Hun- garian and several other languages, and would no doubt have brought its author a Nobel prize, had it appeared fifteen years later. Bjorklund was now elected an honorary member of the Swedish Peace Society. At the Peace Congress in Bern (1892) his treatise, "The Armed Peace," was distributed in English, Ger- man and French, and the Italian Soci- ety, "Unione Operaia Umberto I," sub- sequently elected him an honorary mem- ber. In his later years Bjorklund devoted less time to active work in the universal peace movement. He became more ab- sorbed in scientific research and the problems of philosophy. An important impulse to his later development, he re- ceived from a book, "Significance of Seg- mentation in the Organic World" (Stock- holm, 1890). Here he was brought to serious consideration of the nature of PREFACE. XV the cell and of its place in life. In the organization of the cells in a human body Bjorklund saw an example of a universal law, governing all life. With this thought as a starting point, he un- dertook to investigate the problem, all- important to his philosophy, of the awakening of self-consciousness in a cell-organization and the relationship between this newborn ego and the cells themselves, each of which, to a certain degree, leads an independent life. The result of his studies was first made known in 1894 in a treatise, "The Relation Between Soul and Body from a Cytologic Point of View." In the year 1900, he published the volume herewith presented to the American public, in which he has partly rewritten the for- mer book, and further added his latest conceptions of the nature and evolution of life. This work is undoubtedly one of Swe- den's most remarkable and interesting contributions to contemporary philoso- phy. It is also the last work from Gus- xvl PREFACE. taf Bjorklimd's hand. In July, 1903, his earthly existence was brought to an end, and he was "fully translated" to that spiritual world, the existence of which he was so thoroughly convinced It is true that the philosophical struc- ture that Bjorklund so successfully com- menced to upbuild is far from complete. But the basis he laid is solid and will serve as a foundation for many temples of the future, whether they who worship therein believe in Bjorklund's God or not. This foundation is the fact over- whelmingly proved by Bjorklund, that life is not a quality in matter or phys- ical force, but must be of immaterial or- igin and substance. Granting that time as well as space are forms in which mat- ter and physical force are comprehend- ed by man on his earthly stage of con- sciousness, Bjorklund has also demon- strated the immortality of life. For if life be a reality, which is not here de- nied, with no roots in matter or physical PREFACE. xvii force, whether these are identical or not, this reality exists outside of the forms, time and space, in which matter ap- pears. But whether matter and phys- ical force exist per se, or are mere tran- sient phenomena or what their origin and purpose is, these are questions that Bjorklund never was granted the time to discuss. Bjorklund's grand conception of the relationship between all living beings and their organic upbuilding of larger conscious units, where each individual of higher order is the sum total of all its constituent members of lower or- der, is certainly a most helpful and inspiring addition to our theory of evolution. But the question why an evolution is necessary at all for beings that are con- stituent members in The Perfect Being, is hardly satisfactorily answered by Bjorklund. His ingenious explanation, fully presented toward the end of this volume, still leaves us in a dilemma. Bjorklund holds that Perfect Love has xviii PREFACE. left it to time-existent beings to become of Free Will what they of eternity have been to the All-Spirit; much as a child, unless considered merely a mechan- ical toy, must of free will, grow into the man that his father preconceived and all the time sees in it. But even so we are left between Scylla and Charybdis, for either this evolu- tion has a purpose, which must be reached outside of time — that is, it will come to a standstill; an ending in Nirvana — or else evolution is ever- lasting, without final purpose, and its proper name — delusion. Again the time-bound mind meets in this, as well as in every ethical or metaphysical problem, if it be pushed to its ultimate consequences, the same conflict or irra- tionality that is destined to baffle the space-bound man, whether his micro- scope is restlessly at work to solve the riddle of the divisibility of matter, or his telescope sweeps the heavens in a vain search for the utmost star. This irrationality, that everywhere surrounds PREFACE. xlx US, is a chasm that only religion can bridge. From a philosophical point of view, therefore, we must be satisfied if our workable hypotheses in philosophy and in natural science do not contradict each other; and Gustaf Bjorklund has shown us a road to reconciliation be- tween idealism and natural science, that for a long time seemed entirely lost in the jungle of the materialism of the last century. j^ ^^ FRIES. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page. Old Coxceptions of a Future Life 1 Max's Spiritual Body 26 Source op Spiritual Kxowledge 37 Importance of Spoxtaneous Gexeratiox 51 Materialistic Demonstratiox of Spontaneous Generation 67 How Is Orgaxic Matter Produced? 87 Orgaxic Matter as a Product of Art 107 The Soul axd the Cells 124 Fundamental Qualities of an Organism 138 Organic Relatioxship Betweex the Soul and the Cells 147 Resurrection 166 Man and Ixfixity 174 Recapitulatiox 188 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. All are but parts of one stupendous whole. Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee; All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see; And spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is is Right. — Alex. Pope. Essay on Man, Epistle I. CHAPTER I. Old Conceptions of a Future Life. A CONSCIOUSNESS of immortality, sometimes dim and vague, some- times vivid and clear, seems to be char- acteristic of the human race. However low man may stand he cannot consider death to be the end of his existence. The conviction that he is immortal is innate to him. Annihilation is con- trary to the nature and demands of his spirit. It is true that uncertainty and doubt might arise, but man will never be able wholly to uproot either hope or fear as to the possibility of a future life. Experiencing such feelings and pre- sentiments, man finds himself amidst a world where death and dissolution ev- erywhere surround him. He sees the 2 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. objects of his love or fear pass away, and he knows that sooner or later the same fate will befall himself. When he beholds the lifeless body of some near relative, his presentiment of immortal- ity tells him that the selfsame soul that once animated that body is still alive. In such moments even the man of low cultivation is forced into more or less profound contemplation. The following reflection impresses itself with might and wonder upon him: "I feel convinced that the dead is living, but how can he live without his body and what form does his new life take?" In all ages and stages, men have asked the same or similar questions, and they will go on asking them as long as belief in a future life obtains. But man does not confine himself to questioning, he wants answers, and es- pecially must this be true where the re- ply is so intimately connected with himself. And these answers have not been lacking; we find them formulated in those opinions and theories respect- DEATH AND RESURRECTION. ing a future life which throughout the ages have gradually appeared and pre- vailed. The critically thinking public of the present day takes a decidedly skeptical attitude toward all these theories. They assert, and not without strong argu- ments, that it is impossible to know anything. But, however convinced the public may be of the fruitlessness of discussing the topic, no one will suc- ceed in pushing it entirely aside. Time and again the same questions reappear as dark and threatening clouds on the horizon of our consciousness; they oc- cupy our thoughts, take hold upon our feelings and color our sentiments. It would undoubtedly be suflacient at such moments to have, were it only one fixed point to stand upon; one estab- lished fact to start from and which we could trust would lead our thoughts in the right direction. But such a basis to set out from we have not hitherto been able to find. Will this remain the case forever? Will science 4 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. couceriiing a future life always fall to attain aught but negative results? Let us say at once that humanity will probably be able to ascertain as much as it may be necessary or useful for us to know in this world. This hope is founded on our firm belief that at this time a basis such as that above men- tioned really exists. Natural science has furnished this basis, though no- body as yet has happened to reflect that the facts upon w^hich this basis rests may have any bearing upon our attitude toward a future life, much less give answer to questions such as the following: How, and in what way, is man to pass from this life into another? It will be the object of the following pages, then, to develop further the view just intimated. In prehistoric times men believed in a close relationship between the soul of the deceased and his body in the grave, and this purely instinctive faith is the more remarkable, as it prevailed during stages of civilization when differentia- DEATH AND RESURRECTION. tion between spiritual qualities and physical matter was almost unknown. The contradistinction between soul and body is certainly a fact, a general experience. But neither the individual nor the race realizes this fact suddenly or all at once. The knowledge of the distinction between the physical and the spiritual sphere, with their differ- ent characteristics and qualities, pro- ceeds step by step, being the result of slowly advancing evolution. The child and the savage remain un- conscious of any discrimination be- tween soul and body, and even for the more cultivated man, the border be- tween the two is vague and undeter- mined. According to the psychologic order of man's evolution we might therefore expect that the problem as to this relationship would appear at a comparatively late date, and even then be of importance only to a reduced number of more cultivated individuals. But, on the contrary, experience shows that this question occupies the thoughts DEATH AND RESURRECTION. of men in very low stages of civiliza- tion, and, in fact, that it is of the most general interest. The reason for this evidently lies in the instinctive belief that the body con- tains something which is immortal, and which in the life hereafter the soul can- not dispense with. In its first historic form the ques- tion concerning the soul's relation to the body deals with this relation after, not before, the separation of the soul and body. This latter problem emerges only in very high stages of civilization, and even then is of scientific interest to an insignificant minority only, while the question of our existence after death is religious in its nature and of interest to all. In olden times men were more fully convinced of a continued personal ex- istence after death than civilized man- kind seems to be nowadays. The same vivid conviction we find even in our age among people in the natural state. From the prehistoric peoples we have DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 7 no written communication, but from their graves they speak to the present day intelligibly and plainly of their be- lief in a life to come. Behold the mon- uments defying time and decay, which these people have erected in memory of their deceased. The sepulchres of the Egyptian kings to this very day arouse our amazement and admiration. What was it, then, that induced these peoples of early times to bestow such extraordinary labor on the places of their last rest? It certainly was their belief that the graves contained not only the lifeless body, but also the living soul. The funeral ceremonies evidently show, as Fustel de Coulanges says, that when the body was laid in the grave it was thought that some- thing yet alive was placed there at the same time. The soul was born simul- taneously with the body; death did not separate them; they were both enclosed together in the grave. In olden times people felt so fully assured that a man lived in the tomb, that they never 8 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. failed to bur}^ with him the things of which he was thought to be in want. They poured wine on the grave in or- der to quench his thirst; they brought food to his tomb in order to appease his hunger; they killed horses and slaves, believing that, if enclosed with the dead, these would serve him in his grave as they had served him during his life. It was also in this conviction that the positive duty of burying the de- ceased originated. In order to bring rest to the soul in the subterranean dwelling that fitted its new existence, it was necessary that the body, to which, in some way or another, it still clung, should be covered with earth. The soul, denied a grave, had no dwell- ing. Drifting about, it sought in vain the desired rest after life's fitful strug- gle. Without shelter, without offerings or food, it was condemned to everlast- ing wandering. Therefore, because the deceased was unhappyj he became ill- natured. He tormented the living; sent DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 9 them diseases; destroyed their har- vests ; haunted them in uncanny visions in order to remind them of their duty to bury the body and thereby secure peace for himself. The old authors give evidence of the degree to which people were vexed by fear that proper ceremonies would not be observed at their burial. It was a constant source of grievous irritation. The fear of death was less prevalent than the fear of being left unburied. Naturally so, for it was a question of eternal happiness. It should therefore not surprise us so much when we see the Athenians execute generals, who, after a naval victory, had neglected to bury the fallen. These generals, dis- ciples of the philosophers of their time, did not believe that the fate of the soul was dependent on that of the body. They had therefore decided not to chah lenge the tempest for the empty for- mality of gathering and burying the fallen. But the masses, even in en- lightened Athens, still clung to the old 10 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. conceptions, and accused the generals of godlessness, sentencing them to death. By their victory they had saved Athens, but by their negligence they had brought perdition upon thousands of souls. "These conceptions," says Fustel de Coulanges, "have governed man and society through many genera- tions, and have been the source from which the larger part of ancient do- mestic and public institutions were de- rived." But this is not all. The primitive ideas, referred to above, obtain even today among various nations and tribes all over the earth. From the islands in the Pacific Ocean all the way up to the Polar regions we meet with the same creeds among uncivilized peoples, the same or similar manner of burial as among the ancients. If we were going to illustrate this, the Chinese probably would be the first to attract our attention, not only be- cause of the antiquity of their civiliza- tion, but because of their great num- DEATH AND RESURRECTION. H bers. As is well known, a third part of the world's population is Chinese. Most of the characteristic peculiarities of this enormous community must be attributed to their death-cultus. Every family in China lives in con- tinuous communication with its an- cestors, upon whom are bestowed offer- ings of fruit, grain, rice or vegetables, according to the iDroducts of the soil of their home. The soul will lose none of its qualities through the separation from the body. In company with other souls of their kindred it hovers over the family, partakes of their sufferings, rejoices in their happiness. If forgot- ten, it grows melancholy and ill-na- tured, it complains in doleful voice and its moans are ominous. Woe unto him who ignores these obligations. The of- ferings to the souls of his forefathers must not be neglected. Their memory must not be allowed to fade away. But who is going to attend to these sacri- fices and memorial observances if the family dies out? Matrimony, therefore. 12 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. becomt^s a sacred duty, the foremost of all duties. To the Chinese mind there is no grievauce greater, no punishment more terrible, than expulsion from the fam- ily. What would become of a man's soul if his nearest of kin would curse his memory? To rid himself of such a sickening dream he is ready to sacri- fice everything, even life itself. But only when the body is brought to rest in the family grave can the soul enjoy the care of its kindred. It is obvious, then, that emigration is looked upon with great apprehension by the faith- ful Chinaman. He must either return home during his life or else arrange that his body be brought back if death should overtake him while abroad. We know that the big transoceanic steam- ship companies faithfully carry out this part of their contracts with those of their Chinese passengers who meet with unexpected death in America. Similar ideas are to be found among the negroes of Africa and Australia, DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 13 and among the Indian tribes of Amer- ica. These also supply their deceased with such tools and provisions as they are supposed to need in another world. Among the Arctic peoples the same customs and usages prevail. When an Eskimo is about to die, he is dressed in his best clothes and his knees are drawn up under him. The grave is lined inside with moss and a skin, over which stones and peat are spread. If the dead is a man, his boat, weapons and tools are laid beside the grave; if a woman, her knife and sewing uten- sils; if it is a child, the head of a dog is placed on top of the grave, that the soul of the dog may show the helpless child a road to the second life. If a mother dies while nursing a babe, it is, as a rule, buried alive with her. In a Samoyede grave, Nordenskold found among other things parts of an iron pot, an ax, a knife, a drill, a bow, a wooden arrow, some copper orna- ments, etc. Even rolls of birch bark were found in the coflBn, in all proba- 14 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. bility to be used for making fire in an- other world. Beside the grave a sleigh was placed upside down, evidently in order to provide a vehicle for the de- ceased, and we may assume that rein- deers were slaughtered at the funeral. The essential, fundamental thought in this conception which causes the un- cultivated peoples in our days to treat their deceased in the same way as the ancients did, is the belief that the body contains something which the soul can- not do without in the future life. Soul and body are and remain a unit even beyond the grave. As death means a violent tearing apart of these two fac- tors, the soul cannot be wholly satis- fied without its natural relationship to the body. It is evident, therefore, that to the ancient world life in the lower regions seemed dismal and repulsive. Achilles would rather be a day-laborer on earth than king of the hosts in Hades. Life there passed in a shadowy inactivity amidst all wealth, a desolate emptiness DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 15 in all superfluity, so that the soul could not help but suffer a ceaseless regret whether it moved in the halls of Val- halla or in the Elysian fields. Glori- ous meadows, crystal waters, streams of milk and honey, could not obliterate the craving of the soul for its corporeal existence. It returns time and again to the body in the grave to enjoy the sacrifices and cares of the surviving;. This mourning for the body and con- tinuous longing for the sunny life on earth, made death seem something ter- rible that fretted and tormented men. Was it not natural, then, that the men- tal disharmony caused by the thought of death, should sooner or later bring about a reaction; give birth to the hope of a reunion of the soul with the body on a resurrection day of the dead? At some such conclusion several religions have arrived. We need mention only the Norse sagas, Islam, Parseeism and Judaism. A resurrection, everywhere taught in almost identical terms, is placed at the end of the present system 16 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. of the world in connection with a cos- mic catastrophe out of which new heavens and a new earth with an en- nobled humanity will emerge. The bodily resurrection on the day of judgment is a doctrine also in the Christian faith, as it is interpreted by the orthodox creeds. But this dogma has entirely lost its former authority. It is repeated at each Church burial, but the reading has now become a mere formality. We do not believe any more in a resurrection in the old sense. What factor in our time has been sufficiently powerful to overturn con- ceptions so deeply rooted in human nature? It is the scientific spirit as acknowledged even by faithful theo- logians. Science has shown that man's body is renewed several times during life and that even the bones, placed in the grave, soon "arise" through na- ture's forces themselves and take part again in the universal circulation of matter. In face of all the evidence for this truth, it is impossible to believe DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 17 in the old doctrine of a physical resur- rection. Another question is, whether this ancient belief could disappear without leaving traces in contemporary con- sciousness. Can man have changed so radically in a century, or rather in a few decades, that the conviction of the body's importance to the soul after death will no longer find an echo in his religious instincts? By no means. We are the same human beings and have the same human nature as our forefathers. Forms of conception may go, but not the instincts to which they once gave a satisfactory expression. We may therefore rest assured that the important change of attitude in this question forcefully reacts on re- ligious life in our day. The reaction does not necessarily mean progress at first. Evolution does not follow a straight line; a step forward is gener- ally immediately followed b}'^ phenom- ena in the opposite direction. The religious instincts, underlying 18 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. the conception of the body's impor- tance to the soul in a future life, must create new expressions, and the logic of the old conceptions themselves in- dicates what forms they would take. When the belief in a restoration of the union between the two factors in a human being was suddenly and al- most violently shaken by natural sci- ence, there seemed at tirst no other way out of the difficulty than to choose between them and declare either the soul or the body as the essential part. Those who felt inclined toward the former alternative evidently found themselves confined to a one-sided idealism of little vitality, because an existence without body seems as shadowy and unsatisfactory to man in the present as in ancient times. An increasing weakening of the intensity of religious life would be the natural consequence. Those again who, because of a more realistic tendency, insisted upon the es- sentiality of our body, were logically DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 19 driven to a gross materialism. If sci- ence had proved that the belief in a bodily resurrection is untenable, why should it not be able to demonstrate that all religious doctrines were delu- sions? This reasoning seemed to many so natural that many scientific facts contributed evidence in their favor even when these facts pointed entirely in the opposite direction. There was, however, no necessity to think and reason as these two main schools in our age have done. One might also from the beginning, have taken the same road and arrived at the same conclusion as, for instance. Gran- felt in his "Christian Dogmatic." "It has been demonstrated beyond doubt by natural science," says this prominent theologian, "that the matter of a human body is, even here on earth, in continu- ous circulation, so that in the course of a few weeks all atoms of the whole body are replaced by new atoms. The only lasting attribute of the soul dur- ing this process is the spiritual body. 20 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. which assimilates, typically forms, and again secretes the earthly matter. It must be this spiritual body, then, that constitutes the combining element be- tween man's earthly body and his glori- fied body in the eternal life." Christianity speaks not only of a ma- terial resurrection on the day of judg- ment; it also says that man possesses within him a spiritual body, which after death immediately arises to ever- lasting life. This latter conception is not confined to Christianity. In all re- ligions we find two tendencies side by side, the one idealistic and the other more realistic, which indeed are not really opposed to each other, inasmuch as the belief in a spiritual body may be said to constitute the basis even for the realistic conception that places the spirit in co-relation with the body in the grave. The idealistic tendency may be traced away back even to prehistoric times and has generally been connected with some other burial methods, among DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 21 which cremation was the most com- mon. The place cremation occupied in ancient thought and the connection fancied by our forefathers between the elements which make up man's spirit- ual body, may be gathered from Victor Rydberg's researches in Germanic mvthologv. "The popular ecclesiastical dualism of soul and body," says Kydberg, "was as foreign to the Veda-Aryans as to the heathen Germanic race. Accord- ing to the latter, man consisted of six different elements: First, the earthly element of which the visible body is made; second, a vegetative; third, an animal; fourth, the so-calle*'^ Utcn (litr), an inner body shaped after the gods, and invisible to earthly eyes; fifth, the soul; sixth, the spirit." The earthly and the vegetative ele- ments were already joined in the trees. Ask and Embla, when the gods came and changed them into the first human pair. Each of the three gods gave them separate gifts. From Lodur they re- 22 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. ceived la, that is the blood, and laeti, that is the power of intentional move- ment inherent in the blood, which at- tributes have been considered by all peoples as the characteristics that dis- tinguish animal from vegetable life. Lodur gave them further the god-image, liter godUy by the power of which man's earthly substance receives the form in which it appears to the senses. The Germanic race, like the Hellenes and the Eomans, believed that the gods had human form, so that this form origi- nally belonged to the gods. To the Germanic hierologists and bards man was formed in efjigicm dconim and pos- sessed in his nature a liter goda, a god image in the literal sense of the word. This image may for a short time be separated from the other human ele- ments, so that a person may assume the appearance of another without changing his spiritual identity. The soul, odr, is the gift of Honer, while the spirit, and, is the contribu- tion of Odin. DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 23 Earthly death consists in the separa- tion of the higher elements, spirit, soul and liten, which form a unity for them- selves, from the lower elements and a removal of the former to Hades. The lower elements, the earthly, the vege- tal and the animal, continue in the grave for a longer or shorter time to co-operate and form a certain unity, which, from the higher elements, retain something of the living man's personal- ity and qualities. This lower unity is the ghost, the wraith, which usually sleeps during the day in the grave, but in the night might wake either spon- taneously or by other people's prayers and sorcery. The ghost possesses the nature of the deceased; it is good and benevolent, or evil and dangerous, ac- cording to his disposition. Because animal and vegetal elements form part of his nature, he is tormented by a craving for nourishment if he wakes from his slumber. These conceptions of a dualistic life after death, common among the Veda- 24 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. Aryans, as well as among the heathen Norsemen, were closely allied with the idea of cremation. Agni, the god of fire, removed the dead man to a better world, while the coarser body, with its faults and defects, was consumed by the flames. It was a matter of doubt, however, whether liten, the inner body, would suffer injury in the pyre. But this doubt was removed partly by certain formulas, believed to be protective; partly by burning a buck together with the body as compensation to the "flesh- eating fire,'' the elementary Agni (the liymns distinguish betw^een the two), so that he should not touch the subtler body of the corpse. Through the com- bustion, the lower elements were en- abled to immediately follow the soul of the deceased, and it was thought that two advantages were gained thereby: First, the second ego of the dead was liberated from its grave-dwelling, which was monstrous if his sleep were dis- turbed either bv craving for nourish- DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 25 ment or through the acts of Nirrtis and sorcerers; second, the surviving were relieved from their dread of evil ghosts. CHAPTER II. Man's Spiritual Body. IF WE survey the stages of evolution through which humanity hitherto has passed, we find that all peoples, from prehistoric times up to our own days, have believed in a spiritual body which is essential to the soul in a future life. Is humanity then mistaken in this uni- versal manifestation of religious intui- tion? On this question we need no longer remain uncertain, no longer be- lieve; we know that man possesses such a spiritual body. For many years, even centuries, this has been a fully demon- strated fact, which may be directly ob- served, and which also has been the subject of scientific research. But what do we mean by spiritual body? The term conveys something of DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 27 a dim and vague, and at the same time unmistakable suggestion which characterizes all we comprehend by our emotional faculties. Spiritual body means what the words say, a spiritual- ity derived from, or belonging to, the body. But as no spirituality exists which is not individualized or is not a quality of a living being, this spiritual body must be identical with either one single unit or with a multitude of living units. One single unit it cannot be, because this unity would then be identical with the soul, while on the contrary, the spiritual body should be independent, existing per se. It remains then a multitude of spirit- ual units, which is precisely what natural science has proved to be the case, and these vnits in man^s spiritual body are identical with the living cells. Before the discovery of the cell, our knowledge of the human body was con- fined to such phenomena as could be observed with the naked eye. The or- ganism from that standpoint was neces- 28 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. sarilj a unit of members and organs whose functions, and even coarser ana- tomic structure, were beyond any ac- curate investigation. The elementary parts of the organic tissues cannot, of rourse, be observed in this stage. They jippear first under the microscope and it is therefore witli the discovery of this epoch-making instrument that the science of organisms enters into a new era. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, Malpighi and Grew found that organic tissues, placed under the micro- scope, did not consist of homogeneous substance as they appear to the naked eye, but of small particles separated from each other, which particles have been called cells. But although the cells were discovered, their real inapor- tance was far from being understood, or even surmised. This was no doubt the reason for the small interest given to the cell during the eighteenth cen- tury, and the small progress cytology made during this whole period. DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 29 From 1670 to 1830, or more than a century and a half, the cell was known mainly as a saccate body, resembling a hollow tube, and became the subject of more or less wild speculations. A wider interest for the substance and nature of the cell was evoked in the beginning of the nineteenth century by the works of Brisseau de Mirbel, Trevir- anus, Moldenhaver and several others. Many different parts began to be dis- tinguished within the cells, such as membrane, protoplasm, chlorophyll, etc. These parts were later found to be as many organs in the cell performing- different functions, which are at pres- ent to some extent defined. The cell previously considered as a saccate body proved to constitute a being endowed with organs, a living organism. According to modern cytology, the cell is a living individual; an elemen- tary organism. Although these beings are so exceedingly minute that the naked eye can observe them only in combinations of thousands and millions, »0 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. yet each and every one of them not only possesses individual life, but also the organs necessary for sustaining in- dividual existence. Innumerable quan- tities of such tiny beings build up the organisms of plants and animals. As human individuals form the building material of the body of a community, so the cells form the building material of the bodies of plants and animals. Since the cells bear the same relation to plants and animals as human in- dividuals to a community, every plant and animal then may be considered as a community, a cell-state, where the cells are the citizens. Every organism, therefore, is a com- munity, and vice versa, every community is an organism.. So far as we have knowl- edge of the organisms they are all simi- lar in this respect. Plants and animals are communities of individually living cells in the same sense as nations and states are communities of human beings. The individuals in these different com- munities are of different kinds and DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 31 degrees of development, but the com- position of the organic edifice is in all essential features exactly the same. The differences are literally only ap- parent, being due as they are to the different aspect they present to our ob- servation. While we at first apprehend animals and plants as units, not seeing the in- dividual cells by which they are com- posed, w^e, in the national organisms, on the contrary, first perceive the cells themselves — ^the human individuals — but are unable to grasp the nations as individually living organisms. On the one hand we see directly only the so- cial side, on the other, only the organic. If there are beings observing the hu- man community as we see plants and animals, they would comprehend so- ciety as a unit composed of different trades and industries, but not as com- posed of men, who are the building ma- terial in these members. If such postu- lated observers made an invention cor- responding to our microscope, they 32 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. would be surprised to find the social organism composed of human individ- uals, which fact would seem just as mystical to them as the cells seemed at first to us. So far as we have de- rived from experience a knowledge of organic structure, it reveals itself to us as an individual composed of more primi- tive and elementary individuals. These elementary units of lower kind and or- der might consequently be called a spiritual body in a literal sense. From the point of view of the ele- mentary constituent, each organism is a community, a unit of similar, inde- pendently living, individuals; from the point of view of the organs and of the whole, this community itself is a living individual of higher potency and may in its turn enter as an elementary or- ganism in a spiritual body of still higher power, and so on, in a geometric series. Man enters into the social or- ganism, but is himself composed of cell-organisms, which in turn consist of more primary units. DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 33 Organic structure shows everywhere the same general qualities, the same fundamental features. Each higher and more complex organism repeats in a more perfect way and in a higher po- tency exactly the same general forms of organization as its elementary con- stituents have shown in their own sphere. Hence the surprising simi- larity in the structure of the organisms. When we know one we know all. This would, of course, be neither possible nor conceivable if the spiritual bodies, which form their corporal structure, did not possess corresponding similar fundamental qualities. In what relationship do these cells stand to man? Do they enter into his being as essential or only as incidental constituents? In other words, does man act as organ for the cells and the cells as organs for man only here in time; or, such existence being for the present postulated, is their union extended oven to a future existence? This ques- tion is of extraordinary importance be- 34 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. cause it may entirely change our con- ception of death. With this question settled, we should be in possession of a fact from which we could draw reliable conclusions, and this fact is briefly as follows: Within each living being a con- tinuous renovation takes place, a suc- cessive replacing of the individuals which belong to that being's spiritual body. Human beings constitute, as al- ready pointed out, the cells or the spir- itual body, in an organism of a higher order, viz., of humanity. In this organ- ism, an incessant renewal takes place, as we know, inasmuch as new genera- tions continuously succeed each other. The same is the case with man's own spiritual body. As the human genera- tions in the social body, so the cell- generations in man's body replace each other while the man, himself, all the time, remains the identical individual. The same holds good in regard to the cytoplasm, or the lower units that build up the cells. Everywhere we meet with the same phenomenon of re- DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 35 newal and everywhere with the same identity of the complex individual. This latter originates, develops, and passes away with a lifetime that bears a cer- tain proportion to its complexity. While man counts his existence and develop- ment in years, the evolution of society is reckoned in hundreds and thousands of years. The cells in their turn have a lifetime measured in days, and the units forming the cytoplasm possess an individual existence perhaps lasting but a few minutes or seconds. The circulation in the body, there- fore, is not confined to the material particles but comprises the spiritual body, the living units, as well. Now, the question is: What is the relation- ship between man living in time and these dying and unborn generations of cells, that form his body? Can we show that these living units, this spiritual body, is as necessary for man in a fu- ture existence as here in time? Then death must evidently be something else, something infinitely more than we have 36 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. hitherto imagined or surmised. The point is to investigate what is mortal in man and what is immortal, and on this problem we will now proceed to concentrate onr whole attention. CHAPTER III. Source of Spiritual Knowledge. THE CRITICALLY thinking public- to-day might be said to have long ago relinquished the hope of obtaining a sure and decisive answer to the ques- tion, whether there is an existence be- yond the grave. Some people confine themselves to a faith founded on a smaller or greater probability for either conception. We want palpable evi- dence. To many it even appears neces- sary to have a look behind the veil of visible matter in order to satisfy them- selves as to whether anything exists within the void. "Nobody has returned to tell us how it is," we are often re- minded, and this expression clearly means that complete certainty requires the testimony of eye-witnesses. Such a procedure would be at least 38 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. radical if it were possible. But even if it were, should we then be nearer the goal? The whole mode of thinking is naive, but merits attention especially because it demonstrates how uncertain the information would be that we would obtain through this channel. If somebody returned, little or nothing would, in all probability, be gained. In the first place how could we know that it was the same person that re- turned? It would, perhaps, be best if the soul took possession of the same body. The absence would then be com- parable to, or essentially analogous Avith, the condition of the apparently dead. But to begin with, we could, for good reasons, only ascribe a small value to experience gained under such conditions, and, further, such an ab- sence would evidently mean no real separation of soul and body, no real death, and therefore no real experi- ence of the very thing under considera- tion. But how, and under what conditions, DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 39 would an event of this kind be con- ceivable? Should the person in question sud- denly disappear from our sight and then just as suddenly reappear among us? Endowed with his present organs and senses, which are closely adapted to earthly conditions, such a person could see and comprehend only such ob- jects as differed little or non-essentially from those in the world where we now live. He would possibly be able to ob- serve conditions on other planets in the universe, but he would be utterly un- able to comprehend the things of a world abstracted from the limitations of planetary life. If such a world ex- ists, and some one of us were suddenly removed to it, such a one, amidst all glories with seeing eyes, would yet see nothing; with hearing ears, hear noth- ing; and with feeling senses, feel noth- ing. In order to see and grasp what may exist and happen, the observer himself must have gone through a cor- responding radical change. The con- 40 DEATH AND RESURRECTION. ditions for the functioning of bodily or- gans do not exist there. He must de- velop new and more perfect senses; higher, spiritual and bodily faculties which differ from his present ones as much as the objects of this higher world differ from the things of earth. A direct transposition would there- fore be without value. In order to make investigations, a radical meta- morphosis is an indispensable condi- tion. The soul must be separated from its earthly clothing and pass through all the transformations which com- mence with natural death. In order to return here, this person must again go through the same processes in reverse order. At his re-birth upon earth he would not, in all probability, differ from other people. He would know as much or as little as we do. But even if we assume the improba- ble and imagine that this person re- turned to us with the memory of all he had lived through and that he tried to relate his impressions and experiences, DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 41 such a report would be of no use be- cause it would deal with ideas and con- ceptions entirely incomprehensible to us. The explanation of this is that man is unable to comprehend things and phenomena which have not acted upon his present organs. If we take pains to analyze our boldest and most un- realistic fancies, we will find that their substance and ingredients are only greatly enlarged or reduced images of an already experienced reality. We have never possessed that man's higher senses, never experienced the things which those higher faculties are able to grasp, and we are therefore not in a position to form any idea whatever about such a world. His speech would sound like a foreign language that we could not possibly ever learn to under- stand. Only in case the person in question <()uld adapt himself to our present way of thinking an