In dealing with the
question of man’s redemption, we must, necessarily, consider the question of
his origin and nature; and in doing this we are quite conscious of having much
prejudice to contend with. There is a popular side to this question, and it has
bred and fostered a sensitiveness which makes the task of reducing it to reason
and subjecting it to the light of scripture quite a difficult one. He who would
undertake to call in question the popular view must not hope to escape the
suspicion of being a troubler, bent upon "turning the world upside
down."
Those in whom truth has produced thorough conviction, will never
shirk a duty from fear of popular sentiment. Truth is too precious to be
bargained off for the good will and applause of the world, especially truth
upon which hangs the question of what is pleasing or displeasing to Him
"in whom we live and move and have our being." If it is the duty of
honest conviction to face the popular prejudice at all risks in the
presentation of truth, it is also the duty of every man to so far overcome
prejudice as to investigate for himself in an earnest
endeavor to obey the injunction, "Prove all things and hold fast that
which is good."
But, the reader will
say, you are assuming that the claims you are about to make are sustained by
truth. Certainly, otherwise we should not attempt to brave opposition with the
certainty of incurring the displeasure of the religious world, of friends and
of neighbors. Whether our claims are based upon assumption, however, is the
very question we beseech our readers to test, and the only way to test it is to
read carefully what we say, and examine impartially the evidence given and then
judge ye.
On many exploded
theories the world in all ages has drifted into the habit of following the
popular procession, spurning any attempt of truth to emerge from the obscurity
of its shelter in caves and to break into the ranks and sound a word of
warning. Perseverance, however, has many times succeeded--not that we hope to
stop the procession, but the most we can hope for now is to pull a few out of
the crowd and help to save them from the precipice ahead. The time for a
revolution will come, but not by human effort; that honor is reserved for him
who is the strong arm of the Almighty. With the few who may be willing to stop
and reason we desire to reason on the question in hand.
"What is man that
thou art mindful of him" (Psa. 8: 4)? is a
question in which the whole problem of life here and hereafter is involved. In
seeking the answer, experience and observation are not sufficient, for if you
ask two men to look at a man and answer the question, What
is he? two very different answers will be given. One
will say he is a being composed of two natures, that he is an immortal soul and
a mortal body; the former capable of surviving the latter as a living,
conscious entity. The other will answer that he is a mortal being, animated by
that principle of life which sustains all living beings, and without which he
must cease to be.
The doctrine of the
immortality of the soul has such a hold upon the people that to challenge it is
to arouse the indignant question, What! all of our great men of this day and ages gone by, wrong?
Nothing but the courage of strong conviction can meet this, and the question
is, how best to induce it to lay down its arms long enough to reason on the
matter. We think that perhaps a brief history of the doctrine would help to
induce this prejudice to give place to reason, and so let us glance over this
phase of the subject under the heading of
THE HISTORY OF THE
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
It is well known that
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is called "Platonic;"
which is an implied admission that Plato was its founder, at least in its present
popular form. This places the matter in a bad light at
once; for who that has the least knowledge of the Bible can help viewing with
suspicion a doctrine having its origin in the mind of a heathen philosopher?
The Grecian philosophers were the very men of whom the apostle Paul warned the
churches of Christ to beware. Writing to the church at Colosse, he says,
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after
the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ"
(Chap. 2: 8).
If we trace the history
of this doctrine farther back than the time of Plato and Socrates, its more ancient origin is calculated still more to arouse
suspicion--yea, rather to stamp it with unqualified condemnation, as emanating
from a nation who were the enemies of God and His people, and who groveled in
the lowest depravity of their natures. These were the Egyptians, who are said
to be the first to hold the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, believing also,
as Plato did, in the transmigration of souls through various animal bodies, and
their return to a human body in a period of three thousand years. Search where
we will, instead of this doctrine having its origin in the Scriptures of truth,
it has emanated from heathen minds, and come down through heathen channels, at
last to be united with so-called Christianity when the latter became enthroned
as the religion of the State.
Herodotus, the oldest
historian, says:
The Egyptians say that
Ceres (the god of corn) and Bacchus (the god of wine), hold the chief sway in
the infernal regions; and the Egyptians, also, were the first who asserted
the doctrine that the soul of man is immortal. --Herodotus, p. 144.
Its promoters argued
from that known doctrine of the Platonic School, which was also accepted by
Origen and his disciples, that the divine nature was diffused
through all human souls. --Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, Vol. I, p. 86.
Even with the
originators of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, it was a matter of
expediency rather than one of truth. As Gibbon says, "With the
people"--the ignorant masses--"it was equally true, with the
philosophers equally false, and with the statesmen equally necessary." The
"Pious Fraud" was used as a means in the hands of philosophers and
statesmen to intimidate the common and ignorant masses. With them the policy
was to do evil that good might come--to teach lies as productive of supposed
good results. They would seem to have reasoned thus: We must persuade the
masses that they have or are immortal, or never-dying souls; and that if they
do not obey the laws of the State, their souls will be preserved in misery
eternally in the fires of Tartarus; but if they are obedient to the laws of
their superiors, then their souls will be taken to the happiness of the elysium
fields. Hence Plato, alluding to this sentiment says, "If falsehood be indeed of no service to the gods, yet useful to men in
the form of a drug, it is plain that such a thing should be touched only by
physicians, but not meddled with by private persons. To the governors of the
State then (if to any) it especially belongs to speak falsely, for the good of
the State, whereas, for all the rest, they must venture on no such thing."
It is said that
The most casual
examination of the Pious Fraud of the Greeks and Romans will reveal the
similarity between it and the popular religious systems of our times. The
Platonic and the modern beliefs in relation to the soul’s immortality are
identical; for the heathen tartarus the Bible term hell has been
made to do service in expressing the heathen doctrine of endless misery, and
the term heaven to represent that of the elysium fields. It is a
question if the same "Pious Fraud" is not secretly perpetuated by the
theologians of our times; and indeed it is observable that the immortality of
the soul and its cognate doctrine of endless misery find more willing welcome
among the ignorant masses than with those whose minds have by education been
released from the slavery of a cruel delusion and a degrading superstition. Of
the modern phase of this Mr. Hudson says: "Isaac Watts deserves praise for
his exposure of a flagrant instance of ‘Pious Fraud’ by Thomas Burnet, who had
advised a preacher, in sly Latin, to use the common language concerning future
punishments, whether he thought them eternal or not."
When the theory of
eternal torment is treated of in what quotations we make under this heading, it
must be remembered that it stands related to the immortality of the soul as
effect does to cause. Eternal torment is a necessary outgrowth from the
immortality of the soul, for if the soul is immortal and some are to be lost,
what can be done with them? They cannot be destroyed; and therefore a place of
eternal misery must be provided for them.
From the "Bible
Vindicated" we quote the following:
"Fitch, in his
review of Tyler, on future punishment, gives the following translation of one
of the early fathers in reference to eternal torment: ‘Allowing our tenets to
be as false and groundless presumption as you would have them, yet I must tell
you they are presumptions the world cannot well be without. If they are
follies, they are follies of great use; because the believers of them, under
the dread of eternal pain, and hope of eternal pleasure, are under the
strongest (?) obligations to become good men.’"
It is well known that
Plato and other Grecian philosophers received considerable of their education
in
As the work of Christ
and his apostles progressed and prospered, in the pulling down of the
strongholds of both Jewish and Pagan superstition, and by signs and mighty
wonders performed by the apostles in attestation of their cause the masses were
becoming loosed from the thralldom of the "Pious Fraud" that had held
them in ignorant and slavish subjection, and they rallied around the standard
of "Christ and him crucified" until the pagan world was being turned
upside down, the philosophers saw that something had to be done to save their
cherished thoughts from utter destruction. In the state of unrest incident to
the wonderful revolution which the cause of Christ was effecting,
the selfish and ever watchful priests of paganism and the ambitious and
unscrupulous politicians were on the lookout. They were planning the best
methods to appropriate the new cause to their own use, and to make it
subservient to a system of selfish and ambitious priestcraft and statecraft. To
carry out their plans, they cunningly worked the scheme of amalgamating
paganism and Christianity. A little Christianity and much of paganism would do,
only give it the name of the former; and upon the great Constantinian tidal
wave they were carried up to the throne of "Christendom," where, by
decrees of councils, patronized by the emperor, they fortified themselves and
were in a position to compel the acceptance of the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul and all its cognate theories. Peter, being led by the Spirit to
forsee this, says, "There shall be false teachers among you, who privily
shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them. * * *
And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth
shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words
make merchandise of you; whose judgment now of long time lingereth not, and
their damnation slumbereth not"--II. Pet. 2: 3. Paul assures us that these
deceivers should cause a "falling away," and says that the
"mystery of iniquity doth already work." Here and there after the
apostles’ death we find an opponent of these heathen dogmas, as they were
stealing their way into the
For if you have
conversed with some that are indeed called Christians and do not maintain these
opinions, but even dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac
and the God of Jacob, and say that there is no resurrection of the dead, but
that the souls, as soon as they leave the body, are received up into heaven,
TAKE CARE THAT YOU DO NOT LOOK UPON THESE. But I, and all those Christians
that are really orthodox in every respect, do know that there will be a
resurrection of the body and a thousand years in
But what could an
individual protest do to stem the tide of what was rapidly becoming the popular
sentiment? The light of immortality brought to light through the gospel was doomed
to be hidden under a bushel in order to afford scope for the continuance of the
"Pious Fraud," which of course would prove profitable to the
"clergy" at the expense of the intelligence, liberty and salvation of
a plastic and helpless "laity." The "mystery of iniquity"
continued to work until the man of sin was revealed. The old Platonic doctrine
of the immortality of the soul was incorporated into the so-called Christian
religion, which then became the religion of the State. The philosophy of
Whereas, in our days
some have dared to assert, concerning the nature of the reasonable soul, that
it is mortal, or one and the same in all men; and some, rashly
philosophizing, declare this to be true, at least according to philosophy: We,
with the approbation of the sacred council, do condemn and reprobate all
those who assert that the intellectual soul is mortal, or one and the
same in all men, and those who call these things in question; seeing that the
soul is not only truly, and of itself, and essentially the form of the human
body, as is expressed in the canon of Pope Clement V, published in the
general council of Vienne, but likewise immortal * * * And seeing
that truth never contradicts truth, we determine every assertion which is
contrary to the truth of revealed faith to be totally false; and we strictly
inhibit all from dogmatizing otherwise, and we decree that all who adhere to
the like assertions shall be shunned and punished as heretics."
The system of
abomination which here finds vent in the decree of council and pope is the one
which has profaned and degraded the name of Christ by effecting the unholy
alliance between paganism and Christianity, and in this is to be seen the
Antichrist so clearly described by the apostle Paul in the following words:
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall
depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of
devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot
iron; forbidding to marry" (priests, nuns, etc.), "and commanding to
abstain from meats (on Friday and Lent) which God hath created to be received
with thanksgiving of them that believe and know the truth"--I. Tim. 4:
1-3.
This system, the
apostle says, shall be headed up in "the man of sin, the son of perdition;
who opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is
worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as
God" (II. Thes. 2:4).
It is by the decree of
this "man of sin," with the "approbation of the sacred(?) council," and by "the canon of Pope
Clement V," that the immortality of the soul is declared to be true; and
it is by this Antichrist that the faithful are "strictly inhibited from
dogmatizing otherwise," and commanded to be "shunned and punished as
heretics." In thus maintaining the doctrine of the immortality of the soul,
and other heathen doctrines by force, the "man of sin" has fulfilled
the prophecy: "I beheld and the same horn made war with the saints, and
prevailed against them * * * and he shall speak great words against the Most
High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High" (Dan. 7: 21,
25).
Now, dear reader, if
you cherish this heathen dogma, look at its origin! Look at the channels
through which it has come down to you! Look at the character of its supporters!
Look at the means employed in its support! and then
tell me what you think of a doctrine which was conceived and born in Egyptian
darkness, which was nursed and fed in the speculative heathenism of
The deeply interesting
story must not be told here--how Tetzel the indulgence-monger, bearing the
bull of Leo X, on a velvet cushion, traveled in state from town to town in
a gay equipage, to his station in the thronged church, and proclaimed to the
credulous multitude, "Indulgences are the most precious and sublime of
God’s gifts; this red cross has as much efficacy as the cross of Christ. Draw
near and I will give you letters duly sealed, by which even the sins you
shall hereafter DESIRE to commit shall be forgiven you. There is no
sin so great that indulgence cannot remit. Pay, only pay largely and you shall
be forgiven. But more than all this, indulgences save not the living alone, but
they also save the dead. Ye priests, ye nobles, ye tradesmen, ye wives, ye maidens,
ye young men, hearken to your departed parents and friends (immortal souls of
course), who call to you from the bottomless abyss, "We are enduring
horrible torment, a small alms would deliver us, you can give it, will
you not? The moment the money clinks at the bottom of the chest, the soul
escapes from purgatory and flies to heaven. With ten groschen you can deliver
your father from purgatory. Our Lord God no longer deals with us as God--he has
given all power to the pope."
It will be seen that
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is the very foundation of this
corrupt practice; and no wonder, therefore, that the papacy should go to such
lengths to maintain it. Remove the doctrine. Relegate it to heathenism whence
it came, and what would be the result to
Mr. Guinness says of
this wicked system:
As to the practice of
this unchangeable church there is not a statement in the following quotation
which history does not abundantly substantiate: "As some luxurious
emperors of Rome exhausted the whole art of pleasure, so that a reward was
promised to any who should invent a new one, so have Romish persecutors
exhausted all the arts of pain, so that it will now be difficult to discover or
invent a new kind of it which they have not already practiced upon those marked
out for heretics. They have been shot, stabbed, stoned, drowned, beheaded,
hanged, drawn, quartered, impaled, burned or buried alive, roasted on spits,
baked in ovens, thrown into furnaces, tumbled over precipices, cast from the
tops of towers, sunk in mire and pits, starved with hunger and cold, hung on
tenter hooks, suspended by the hair of the head, by the hands or feet, stuffed
and blown up with gunpowder, ripped with swords and sickles, tied to the tails
of horses, dragged over streets and sharp flints, broken on the wheel, beaten
on anvils with hammers, blown with bellows, bored with hot irons, torn
piece-meal by red-hot pincers, slashed with knives, hacked with axes, hewed
with chisels, planed with planes, pricked with forks, stuck from head to foot
with pins, choked with water, lime, rags, urine, excrements, or mangled pieces
of their bodies crammed down their throats, shut up in caves or dungeons, tied
to stakes, nailed to trees, tormented with lighted matches, scalding oil,
burning pitch, melted lead, etc., etc.
Here we stop, for other
things given are too horrible to repeat, and we again ask you who still hold
the very doctrine from which all these crimes, cruelties and abominations have
resulted, what do you think of it and its results?
The mysteries of
It is certain that it
is not in the power of the church or the pope to establish articles of faith,
or laws for morals or good works * * * But I permit the pope to make articles
of faith for himself and his faithful such as * * * the soul is the substantial
form of the human body, the pope is emperor of the world, and the king of
heaven and God upon earth; the soul is immortal, with all those
monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dung-hill of decretals.--Luther’s
Works, Vol. II, fol. 107.
As Justin Martyr
answered the Platonists of the second century, so did Tyndall those of the
fifteenth:
Ye (he says), in the
putting them (souls) in heaven, hell and purgatory destroy the arguments
wherewith Christ and Paul proved the resurrection.* * * If the souls be in
heaven tell me why they be not in as good case as the angels be. And then what
cause is there of the resurrection?
Notwithstanding the
strong protest of these men, according to the light they could catch in the
midst of such thick darkness, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul still
held its heathen grasp upon the minds of the people, and merged from Papalism
into Protestantism, and is found today the foundation of popular religion in
all its increased and ever increasing branches. The Bible, however, having been
plucked as a brand from the fires of Roman tyranny, was opened to the people,
and was no longer entirely monopolized by a selfish and dishonest clergy. To
the extent that the Bible was carefully read and studied, it was once more true
that the "poor had the gospel preached unto them." Here and there has
sprung up a John in the wilderness, through whom the light of the gospel
immortality has been caused to shine in a dark place. Coming to bear witness of
that light, the truth in a measure has been revived, and in the wilderness of
Romish superstition, as in the wilderness of Judea, the former in relation to
the second coming of Him who is the Light, as the latter was to his first
coming, the voice is heard, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make his
paths straight." The Scribes and Pharisees of Romanism, like those of
Judaism, gnash their teeth at the sound of the voices; and if their king had
not lost his power to "wear out the saints," how gladly would even
the daughters of Rome dance before its Herod could they thereby secure the
heads of those Johns who rebuke them as a "generation of vipers," and
warn their followers to "flee from the wrath to come," when the
"merchants" of Rome, "who have been made rich by her delicacies,
shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and
saying, "Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and
purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls; for
in one hour so great riches have come to naught. Alas! Alas! for
in one hour she is made desolate, with violence thrown down, and shall be found
no more at all."
Now with this history
before the eyes of the reader we may hope to have disarmed, in some degree, the
prejudice that would indignantly refuse to calmly consider this question; and
by way of gaining still more the friendship of our readers we would press upon
their attention that the quotations from Justin Martyr, Luther, and Tyndall
show that in protesting against the doctrine of the immortality of the soul we
are in good company. Perhaps to supplement these it would not be amiss to refer
to a few writers of more modern note:
The doctrine of the
immortality of the soul is omitted in the law of
Moses—Gibbon, Vol. 1, p. 530-31.
No idea can be more
erroneous than to suppose that man is an immortal being, on account of
the substance of which he is composed.--George Combe's, System of
Phrenology, p. 595.
As a noun nephesh (the
Hebrew word for soul) hath been supposed to signify the spiritual part
of man, or what we commonly call his soul. I must confess that I can find no
passage where it hath undoubtedly this meaning.--Parkhurst’s Hebrew
Lexicon.
Before examining the
highest authority, the one that must forever settle the question, it may be
profitable to view the subject from the standpoint of nature, for if we find
from history and nature that the evidence is against the doctrine the
satisfaction of finding the Scriptures in harmony with these will be all the
greater. So let us consider the question:
DOES NATURE TEACH
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL?
We behold man a living,
breathing, thinking creature, possessed of what we call the five
senses--seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting. Viewing him as we see
him in the exercise of his various functions, forbidding the play of
imagination, and excluding the influence of theological training, do we find
anything in him that may be set down as proof that he is possessed of an immortal, or immaterial soul? Does the fact that he can see
and hear, smell, taste and feel prove it? If it does, then it proves the same
for every creature possessed of these senses. The five senses are exercised and
experienced by contact, in some form or other, with objects; and it is the same
whether in the lower animals or in man. Is it, as some claim, that "the
eyes are the windows of the soul?" If so, then what are the eyes of all
animals the "windows" of? Why do they have "windows" if
there is nothing in them to use the "windows," to look out through
the "windows?" The eyes of the lower animals serve the same purpose
as the eyes of man. They produce sight in both. There is a use for the eyes of
the animal and there is something to "look out through the windows."
What is it? Is it not the animal itself? the living,
breathing (if not the thinking) animal? When the eyes of the horse strike an
object, it is the horse that sees, and when any part of the animal comes in
contact with any other substance, it is the horse that feels. Why is it not the same with man--why is it not the living,
thinking, breathing man that "looks out through the windows," or that
sees? Call the horse a soul--for that is what he is, a living creature--and
then we may say, "The eyes are the windows of the soul," and yet
never dream of an inside horse-soul, separate from the living, breathing horse.
Call the man a soul, and forbidding the play of imagination and excluding the
influence of theological training, why not say, "The eyes are the windows
of the soul," i. e., the living, breathing, thinking man sees with
his eyes, and not that there is an inside soul entirely separate from the
physical man we behold?
It is not claimed that
the immortal soul is visible. When we examine man from the natural standpoint
we cannot see the immortal soul. If we believe there is one it is not because
it has come in contact with the five senses--either any or all of them. Our
five senses will not reveal to us an immortal soul in man or beast. It is no
use to try to find it by sight, hearing, feeling,
tasting, or smelling; and since these are the five natural senses, and we are
considering the subject from a natural standpoint, there is no natural sense by
which to discover it. If it is discoverable at all, it must be by supernatural
means, which we will examine further along.
But, it will be said,
there is something back of the five senses; because sight, hearing,
feeling, etc., are not mere contact. True, there may be contact without
feeling, or without producing the experience of any of the five senses; there
must be "something" to take cognizance of contact--to feel pain or
pleasure; but what is that "something?" If we, for the want of any
natural law of demonstration, imagine it is the immortal soul, then we have
over-reached the mark, because that "something" experiences the
results of contact in animals as well as in man. What is it that makes the animal
conscious that any part of its body has come in contact with another
substance? In other words, where is the seat or center of consciousness in the
animal, to which the fact of contact is instantly carried by the electric nerve
wires of its natural being? Can we, by the use of our natural senses find the
center? If we can find it in the animal, shall we not be in a fair way of
discovering its seat in man? Well, we shall not look for it in its feet, nor in
its body; but, instinctively, we shall go to the head of the animal, and when
we remove a portion of the skull, we shall find that by pressure upon the brain
we are able to stop the consciousness from taking cognizance of contact--the
five senses will cease to perform their functions. The animal will be in a
state of insensibility. Why is it that the contact of the foot with another
substance is not felt now? If it were the foot that felt, it would still
feel, but an interference with the brain is what has stopped the sense
of feeling, and what does this prove? It proves that the brain is
"headquarters" of the animal institution, and when it is prevented,
by natural causes, from performing its natural functions, there is no
consciousness, no experience of pain or pleasure, no knowledge, no thought.
When the animal is in
its normal state, the fact of any part of its body coming in contact with
another body is felt because by the electric nerve-wires the fact is
communicated to the nerve-center, the brain, and then causes sensation; pain or
pleasure is experienced, and knowledge produced, which is retained in the
storehouse of memory, and used, practically, according to the degree of
intellectuality possessed by the creature. The very same is true of man, and
therefore, so far, we have found no reason, viewing the subject from the
standpoint of nature, for man’s possession of an immortal soul.
The metaphysician
asserts that matter cannot think, and upon this he proceeds to build his
theory, adding, "Man thinks, therefore he is more than matter." In
the same manner it might be asserted that matter cannot see; the horse sees,
therefore he is more than matter. Logic will lie if it is based on a false
premise. Who is to say what matter can or cannot be made capable of doing when
fearfully and wonderfully organized and vitalized by the creative hand of
Omnipotence? What is it that feels, sees and hears in the horse--yea, what is
it that thinks and retains thoughts, manifesting them in memory, in some
animals, too, in a higher degree than in some men? Who will be presumptuous
enough to assert that it is not matter? If it is anything besides matter in the
animal then the mark is overreached again, in proving the animal in possession
of an immateriality which is desired to be limited to man. If thought is the
property and product of immateriality, then nothing material can affect it; the
one cannot come in contact with the other, and therefore they cannot interfere
with each other, any more than an act of congress can collide with a
locomotive. But we do find that materiality may interfere with thought, that
one material substance producing pressure on another--the brain--will put a
stop to the evolution of thought. Numerous experiments have proved this, and
observation demonstrates it every day. From the American Advent Review the
Bible Vindicated quotes the following:
Prof. Chapman in one of
his lectures, says: "I saw an individual with his
skull perforated, and the brain exposed, who was accustomed to submit his brain
to be experimented upon by the late Prof. Weston before his class; his
intellectual and moral faculties disappeared on the application of pressure to
the brain. They were held under the thumb, as it were, and restored at
pleasure to their full activity by discontinuing the pressure."
The most remarkable
case, however, is that given by Sir Astley Cooper, in his "Surgical
Lectures," as follows:
A man by the name of
Jones received an injury to his head while on board a vessel in the
These facts are
sufficient to show that men and animals are dependent upon matter, in the form
of brain, for the power of thought, and that it is the living brain that takes
cognizance of contact, and is, therefore, the center to which facts that come
within the range of the five senses are carried to be intellectually dealt
with. When communication with this center is cut off, or when the brain is
injured, consciousness and intellectuality cease in all creatures possessing
these powers.
There is no use denying
that there are degrees of intelligence in men and animals. It is a fact that is
patent to observation and experience that the shape of the head is quite a
consideration in the question of degree of intelligence, both in the creature
and man, a fact that can never be accounted for upon the hypothesis of thought
being a property or product of an immaterial soul--that which has no shape,
because it has no substance, cannot be seen, felt, weighed or
measured--which is supposed to possess the power of thought independently of
the body, and, indeed, if the body has anything to do with the evolution of
thought at all, it is a hindrance rather than a help; and it is claimed that
the soul thinks more perfectly when disembodied than when it is imprisoned in
the body, although it is difficult to see how a material body could affect the
functions of an immaterial entity; and if this difficulty could be explained in
relation to man, we should still have the fact that thought, in various
degrees--according to the "shape of the head," too--is manifest in
animals. Moreover, it is a fact that the degree of thinking powers in the
animal ascends in proportion to the extent the shape of its head approaches to
that of man. When these facts are recognized it will be evident that instead of
there being a necessity of going from the material to the immaterial to account
for thought, we are driven to the position that it can be accounted for upon no
other principle than that it is a product of electrically vitalized matter--a
position which necessarily forces us back to a First Cause, possessed of
infinite wisdom, which, in the impartation of the vitalizing power, impregnated
it, as it were, with a will force that determined what should be its functions
according to natural laws.
The metaphysician and
the theologian claim that God is immaterial, and that the soul is part of God
and that it is therefore, immaterial--without body or parts. Without stopping
to notice the absurdity of that which is without parts being a part of that
which has no parts, we may ask, When does this
supposed part of God, which is claimed to be the thinking entity, take
possession of the body? Is the question of whether a body begotten by
natural laws shall be supplied with an immortal entity decided by the laws
of nature, or is it decided by the direct will of Him of whom the soul is
claimed to be a part? It would be difficult to see how natural laws could reach
up to heaven, into the very presence of Him who dwells in light unapproachable,
and snatch millions of parts of God’s very essence, transform them into
individuals, intellectualities--some of them--and deposit them in their
respective bodies as these are forced into the world, some of them in direct
opposition to the laws of God, and in the lowest depths of depravity, and the
offspring of the worst crimes. To commit one’s self to such a theory would
surely be to defy nature and give it power to even enter heaven in defiance of
the moral laws of God.
On the other hand, if
the question of the supply of the immaterial entities in proportion to the
demand of material receptacles is determined by a special decision of God in
each case, then why is there so much partiality shown? Why are some of these
"thinking entities" possessed of so much greater superiority of
intellect than others? Why are some not able to think at all--why are there
idiots? Moreover, if the thinking entity comes direct from God, why is there not
the power of thought in infancy that there is in maturity? And why is not the
mind as strong in old age as it is in the full bloom of manhood? Is it that the
immaterial grows and declines with the material? and
if the material is dwarfed, the immaterial is proportionately dwarfed? This
would make immateriality, after all the effort to seek for the power of thought
in it, dependent upon materiality, and thus defeat the object in view in
refusing to see that vitalized matter thinks.
Again, a man’s mind is
largely affected by what he eats and drinks. Look at the man tottering and
reeling in a state of intoxication. Listen to his foolish talk, and then let us
ask, What is the cause of this? To answer that he has
been drinking intoxicants is not enough; another question must be answered,
viz.: Why has the drinking of intoxicants by the body affected his mind, if the
mind is no part of matter--the body--but is the product of an independent
entity which is not matter? Are we not driven back to the position that it is
matter, in the form of vitalized brain, that is the thinking part of man and
animal, and that certain kinds of material things are adapted to affect other
certain kinds of material substances; that intoxicants will inflame and excite
the brain, throw it out of its normal state into an unbalanced condition, and
the incoherent babble of the inebriate is the result?
There are thousands of
poor unfortunate people in a state of insanity. How is this to be accounted
for, except upon the principle recognized by the reasonable physician,
that it is the result of transmission from parent to child, according to
(abused) natural laws, or of impairment or disease of the brain? If thought is
not a property of matter, what is the use of placing an insane person in the
hands of a physician? Surely his professional skill is limited to the domain of
matter; and any treatment from him must be based upon the principle that what
will restore the brain to a healthy state, or what will remove a disease from
any part of the body that affects the brain, will restore soundness of mind.
Were he foolish enough to believe that the mind is the product of an immaterial
entity, he would never try to reach it with drugs nor by surgical operations;
he would do as the heathen do--turn the patient over to the priests and the
gods, who alone are supposed to have jurisdiction in the realms of
immateriality.
Upon the hypothesis
that every man is possessed of an immaterial entity,
and that he depends upon it for his mind, how absurd to believe that insanity
is transmissible from generation to generation? If mind comes direct to the
child as a quality of an immaterial soul, why do we see traits of
character--mental and moral habits--inherited from parents? Mental traits and
powers possessed by parents are generally manifest in their children, a fact
which is accounted for by what common people call "running through the
blood." Bitterness or sourness of the fruit of a tree is transmitted, and
no one is foolish enough to claim that these qualities are supernaturally
infused into it. Why not allow the same natural laws to operate in man in the
production and transmission of temperament, mental powers, and moral
proclivities? We should then see that the many faults, idiosyncrasies, idiocy
and imbecilities "bred and born" in men are not infused into them as
qualities of an immaterial entity direct from heaven; but that they are the
results of disease and, many of them, perversion of natural laws, generation
after generation.
It has been claimed by
some that while thought is a quality of an immaterial soul, the brain is
necessary as a channel through which it operates during natural life; and that
upon this principle the fact of mind being affected by body is to be accounted
for. But instead of this explaining the matter, it only presents the absurdity
of the immaterial being affected by, and dependent upon, the material; and a
philosophy that would volunteer such a theory to extricate itself from a
difficulty only manifests the straits to which it is given to hide itself from
the light of reason. To admit that the brain is necessary as a channel for the
soul to think in man is to lay down a principle that would prove the possession
of thought in the animal to be the result of an immaterial soul operating
through the channel of the brain, and therefore prove too much. It will not do
to try to evade the force of this by splitting hairs to divide instinct from
thought, using the former term in relation to the animal and the latter in
relation to man. That is only an artificial distinction--a distinction without
a difference, when considered in relation to the intelligence of some animals
as compared with that of some men; for it must be admitted that such a
comparison in many instances gives a verdict in favor of the animal.
But suppose we grant
for a moment that the soul as the thinking entity operates conjointly with and
is dependent upon the brain for the evolution of thought, what then becomes of
the theory that it continues to think when the body, with its brain, lies silent
in the dust of death? If it depends upon the brain for thought in life then in
death there can be no thought. It will not do for philosophy to imagine that
when the brain is gone another channel will be provided; for that would be
going into realms of imagination, and stepping on ground that is forbidden
philosophy, revelation being the only means of determining its truth or
falsity, and that we will consider further along. It is certainly reasonable
and logical to reduce this theory to the following syllogism, which will show
that it defeats the very object it seeks to maintain: The soul is dependent
upon the brain for thought; the brain dies with the body; therefore when the
body is dead the soul cannot think.
Nature stands by and
sees one who is to be subjected to electrocution; the subject receives one
shock and he is unconscious, but signs of life are manifest. He receives
another, and nature pronounces him dead and therefore unconscious, while
the priest steps to the front and boldly, however absurdly, exclaims, "No,
he is not unconscious." Nature asks the "Rev." gentleman, "Was the man unconscious after receiving the
first shock?" "Yes." "And do you mean to say that while the
first shock nearly killed and struck the man unconscious, the second absolutely
killed and yet struck him conscious?" and the priest answers,
"Y-e-s," and proceeds to abuse Nature for being too critical and for
encroaching upon ground that belongs only to a monopoly that enriches itself
upon disembodied ghosts and immaterial entities.
We behold man as he
approaches the verge of death, after a long and struggling life. As his body
declines his mental powers gradually weaken and wane, until he is in his
"dotage." Then he lies helpless upon his dying bed; and soon, while
there is little life remaining, consciousness ceases, and at last the lamp of
life goes out, and he who once lived is now dead; he who once talked is
now silent; he who once could see now sees no more; he who once could hear is
now oblivious of all sound; he who once thought has ceased to think--he is dead.
There nature leaves
him, and that is as far as it will take us in the investigation of the
question, Is the soul immortal? If there is a future life, it must be by a
resurrection, a doctrine that nature will not teach and prove to our
satisfaction; and if there is to be a resurrection of the dead, we must derive
our knowledge of it from Revelation, in the realms of which we will now proceed
to further investigation. The only satisfactory way to settle the question of
the immortality of the soul is to appeal to Him who is the author of our being.
We depend upon Him for the knowledge of our origin and He has been pleased to
reveal the particulars to us of man’s formation, what he was formed out of and
how he was made a living being. In accepting His explanation we shall not have
to do it in spite of true science and philosophy, but we shall find that facts
and revelation perfectly agree, so our question now shall be, Does the Bible
teach the immortality of the soul?