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IMMORTALITY. 



THE PRINCIPAL PHILOSOPHIC 

ARGUMENTS FOR AND 

AGAINST IT. 



BY 

WILLIAM COLBY COOPER, M. D. 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 



CLEVES, OHIO. 
1904. 



RY of COn- 
Two Copies KecsivtJG 

DEC 9 1iM4 

Oopyrife-ni entry 

CUSS £L- XXc. Not 

So // U~ 

copy a. 



■C7<5" 



Copyright 1904, by W. C. Cooper, M. D. 



William Ross Hartpence, Printer, 
harrison, ohio. 



FOREWORD AND DEDICATION. 

1 MERELY wish to state here that in 
writing this little book, I have cared 
more for its matter than its manner. Al- 
most none of it has been written with 
much reference to literary effect. If it 
happen that such of it as displeases you, 
shall please another, then we should all 
be satisfied. Anyhow, I herewith dedicate 
the little volume to all thinkers, and all 
seekers after truth. W. C. C. 

Cleves, Ohio, 
Nov. 25, 1904. 



IMMORTALITY 



EN THE immediate sense, this is writ- 
ten responsively to the urgent request 
of an agnostic friend. In a sense that is 
far from remote, it is written too for the 
benefit of all doubters. I should not im- 
pose upon myself this task, if it did not 
seem reasonably certain to me that, when 
completed, it will be helpful to at least a 
few who have thought themselves out into 
hopelessness. This is presumptious, I 
know, but I find justification in the facts ; 
first, that I know as much about the mat- 
ter as any other man, and second, that 
my mode of presenting it may have pecu- 
liar advantages. 



2 IMMORTALITY. 

It is my purpose to be perfectly fair in 
the treatment of this mighty problem. 
This will be easy for me, for, being an ag- 
nostic myself, I shall be hampered by no 
doctrinal, nor partisan bias. Although I 
do not know immortality to be a fact, I 
feel that I know a great many nearly in- 
contestable reasons why it should be a 
fact. 

I shall arrange the pros and cons in 
pairs, with the expectation of having some 
pros left for which there will remain no 
corresponding cons. Without anything 
further in a preliminary way, I shall enter 
at once upon the discussion of this great- 
est of all questions. I should think the 
ontological character of much that follows 
requires neither explanation nor apology. 

CON I. 

fHE heartlessness, and unmorality of 
Nature. There is nothing else so 




IMMORTALITY. 3 

cruel as Nature ; her record is one of blood 
and agony. Such cruelty is not compati- 
ble with the existence of a beneficent God ; 
it contradicts the God idea. 



PRO I. 

ATURE'S "cruelty" is the conse- 
quence of the invariability of natu- 
ral law, and without this inflexibility, all 
would be chaos . In fact, the bare existence 
of anything not subject to forces which we 
call law, is past human conception. 

"But," objects our materialistic friend, 
"if there had been an omnipotent and be- 
neficent God, he would have so arranged 
it that there would have been no suffer- 
ing." 

The answer is that neither self-contra- 
diction nor self-transcension is possible 
even to God. Both are as impossible as 
that black and white should be simulane- 
ously the same in appearance. God could 



4 IMMORTALITY. 

not create two adjoining hills without a 
hollow between them, for the reason that 
such a feat would have to depend upon 
his self-contradiction; i.e., his annihila- 
tion. This is because God cannot be ra- 
tionally conceived of as separable from 
what we call matter. The completeness 
of our own material involvement is such 
that we habitually impute a sort of tangi- 
bility to even the most subtile abstraction. 
Necessarily we think in terms of the ma- 
terial. That we thus think, is easily de- 
monstrable, for it is illustrated in every 
conversation we hear. In all our utter- 
ances with reference to the immaterial, 
we infallibly impute thingness to nothing- 
ness, thinkability to unthinkability. At- 
tempt to define "unthinkable," and you 
will quickly catch my meaning. Thus: 
unthinkable. What cannot be thought ; 
i.e., That which cannot be thought ; i. e., 
That thing which cannot be thought. This 
truth will be found to apply in all our 



IMMORTALITY. 5 

thoughts and words having reference to 
the unthinkable, and especially to what is 
meant by the word " nothing." 

We would better realize, right in the 
start, that we cannot get without the do- 
main of matter. So far as we can possi- 
bly know, there is nothing but matter. 
Not-matter, being unthinkable, is without 
the range of human thought and experi- 
ence, and therefore — with reference to us 
— does not exist. There is only matter. 
Further on it will be shown that there is 
nothing humiliating in this conclusion. 
Likewise, it is well for us to take into ac- 
count our scientific limitations, and the 
consequent necessity of certain assump- 
tions . Thus , we are forced to assume the 
existence of the atom, and of that which 
we have named ether. In this connec- 
tion, only the latter will come in for con- 
sideration. This ether necessarily occu- 
pies all space, and so far as that is con- 
cerned, all matter. It must be the primal 



6 IMMORTALITY. 

basis of all phenomenal possibility, for it 
is universal — it is omnipresent. It is mis- 
cible with atmosphere, with all gases, and 
is at least relationable with everything. 
Its nearly infinite tenuity is necessary to 
that extreme vibratility upon which the 
conduction of light, heat, electricity, and, 
possibly, even thought depends. As it is 
universal, there is no void in the universe. 
This is materialism, but its acceptance 
is inescapable, because not-matter is un- 
thinkable . It is true that many a coming 
tangible reality has been unthinkable un- 
til exhumed, but this cannot ever be true 
of the intangible. One is unthinkable, 
because it is not yet in evidence ; the oth- 
er because it ( ! ) is logically impossible . 
I say "it," because I think and write in 
terms of the material, but there is no it- 
ness about it(!) Not-matter is without 
the domain of thought because it( !) is not. 
"Unthinkable" is merely a word, like "no- 
thing ; J ' neither of them stands for any- 



IMMORTALITY. 7 

thing but sound . The argument which is 
conceived to end in the unthinkable is in- 
valid, while that which rebounds from it 
may be valid. This is it : with reference 
to the unthinkable, you are annihilated— 
that's all. We have to accept the materi- 
alism referred to, because it is within the 
bounds of the thinkable . But the bugaboo 
aspect of materialism vanishes in the re- 
alization that mind itself is material. Oth- 
erwise it would not be relatable to any- 
thing more gross than itself. That the 
mind is material, is susceptible of ready 
demonstration. Because it exists, it occu- 
pies space; it acts, and reacts; it varies 
in quantity and quality. All of these are 
physical properties. Mind does things; 
i. e., it acts. Emotion, or feeling — a men- 
tal phase — not only acts, but is suscepti- 
ble of increase or diminution. You love 
Mary — that is action. You love Mary 
more than you love Ann ; so then, love has 
mathematical relations. The terms "more" 



8 IMMORTALITY. 

or "less" are not possibly applicable to 
abstraction. It follows that the very high- 
est spiritual experience is material, for it 
is an expression of consciousness; i. e., 
mentality. The immaterial is such, not 
because it is absolutely intangible, but be- 
cause its physical properties are not di- 
rectly evident to our senses. 

Is this conception of the supraphysical, 
so called, cheapening, or belittling? If 
so, is it for any other reason than that it 
conflicts with your accustomed mode of 
thought? Even under the prevalent view 
of the subject, do you not have to concede 
that matter is as sacred, as mysterious, 
and as much of God (there being a God) , 
as mind is? If this is so, are not mind, 
and matter (to distinguish between them) 
equal to the same thing, and can there be 
any sane objection to that thing being 
matter, especially as we can only think in 
terms of the material? You see, all of us 



IMMORTALITY. 9 

are, at bottom, materialists, even as we 
are agnostics. 

There is no space, so to speak, between 
something and nothing. Religious people 
have absorbed from pulpit emanations, 
the idea that spiritual being occupies a 
place between the limit of materiality and 
the beginning of non-materiality; i. e., 
nothing. In the first place, a limit to ma- 
teriality is not conceivable, and this fact 
puts it without the pale of reason — it can- 
not be reasoned about. In the second 
place, not-matter being unthinkable, is 
unrealizable, for the unthinkable is without 
relation, and reality depends upon rela- 
tion. As entitativeness cannot pertain to 
an abstraction (there is but one abstrac- 
tion, if indeed there is one), the spirit 
cannot be abstraction. The orthodox re- 
ligionist, mistaking a subjective mirage for 
an objective fact, feels that he has an act- 
ual concept of a nonmaterial being — an 



10 IMMORTALITY. 

unreal reality ! His spirit ideal is not ma- 
terial, and still is not nothing ! 

Dropping the partial digression : if this 
fixity of natural law is responsible for all 
our woes, it is also responsible for all our 
peace, pleasure, joy, spiritual exaltations, 
etc. There is a fundamental fact with 
which all should be familiar. It is this : 
All things exist through relativity. In the 
last analysis, a thing is what it is because 
it is not anything else. There is no posi- 
tive evil ; there is no positive good. Wheth- 
er a thing is "evil" or "good," depends up- 
on the result of comparison. The theolo- 
gists are to blame for the prevalent notion 
that "evil" is positive in its existence. 
The fact is, the terms "good" and "bad" 
are, in the end, sense synonyms. "Bad" 
is merely less "good ;" "good" is simply 
less "bad." The worst man in the world, 
is the least good one ; the best man, the 
least bad one. It is absolutely certain that 
every person living is just as good as he, 



IMMORTALITY. 11 

or she, can or could be at any given mo- 
ment. The statement may seem a little 
startling, but it is a fact that the thrill of 
a love kiss is only another phase of tooth- 
ache. Both, in the end, are the same 
thing — a state of consciousness . 

The ultimate clincher — supposing one 
is needed — with reference to relativity, 
inheres in next to the basic fact of all facts 
— intellection. To think, is to relate, and 
there could be no thought if things did 
not exist purely by relationship. Thought 
is — next to life — the primal fact. It ne- 
cessarily clothes all it touches with the 
spirit and quality of its essence — compar- 
ativity. This, even as it derives its ex- 
istence — this essence — from comparable- 
ness. If it could be said that anything ex- 
ists positively, it would have to be admit- 
ted that it derives its positiveness from 
relativity. The destruction of thought 
would be the destruction of subjectivity, 
which would be the destruction of object- 



12 IMMORTALITY. 

ivity, so that the positive existence of 
things is not true, unless it is true that 
nothing exists ! 

As things exist then by comparison 
alone, it is plain that the possibility of 
what we call "good," depends upon the 
possibility of what we call "bad, M and 
vice versa. Evil and good being essential- 
ly the same, (for each represents merely 
a particular degree of the same thing) , 
they may be considered as simply repre- 
senting an ascending moral scale. Al- 
though an ascending, is also a descending, 
scale, in this instance the ascent fact dom- 
inates, for otherwise progressiveness would 
be impossible. We know that it is not 
only possible, but that it is an all-controll- 
ing fact. A thing is "good" (in the prox- 
imal sense) because it is integrative — con- 
structive ; "bad" because it is disintegra- 
tive — destructive. If the integrative did 
not lead, and compel, evolution would be 
impossible. The fact that evolution (a 



IMMORTALITY, 13 

constant progressiveness toward physical 
and moral betterment) exists, confirms 
the fact that the integrative and construct- 
ive principle is the dominant one in the 
cosmic procession. This fact is a benefi- 
cent one, and so we have beneficence. The 
idea of beneficence is inseparable from 
that of purpose. This results from the fact 
that a goodness is not intrinsically such, 
unless it is intentionally projected. What 
may be called incidental, or negative ben- 
efit, is merely an expression of that com- 
pensatory principle which pervades the 
universe. So, we say, "It is an ill wind 
that blows nobody good." The benefi- 
cence spoken of, is not incidental, nor ac- 
cidental — it is the direct, and forced out- 
put of cosmic movement. As the fact of 
beneficence implies that of purpose, so the 
fact of purpose depends on that of a pur- 
poser. 

The foregoing argument would seem to 
establish the existence of a God. A wri- 




14 IMMORTALITY. 

ter has said : "God, and the rest is easy." 
It has been seen that in the scheme of 
things, beneficence is in the lead, and that 
Nature's " cruelty" is Nature's necessity. 



CON II. 

VOLUTION expresses itself through 
the might-is-right principle, and this 
is not consistent with the existence of a 
just and merciful God. 



PRO II. 

fHE objection held in con ii is abla- 
tively covered in the arguments of 
pro i, but a little more may be said with 
direct reference to con ii. First, it is con- 
siderably more than nothing that the spir- 
it of grammar coincides with that of the 
proposition, "Might is right." Grammat- 
ically, might and right are reduced to syn- 
onymity, for their forces are qualitatively 



IMMORTALITY. 15 

coincident, and quantitatively equal. In 
the grand total of things, ethical results 
are in parallelism with this grammatical 
fact, for, in the end, right — owing to its 
might — prevails; whence it inescapably 
follows that might is right. 

By a few, though, this reasoning may 
be considered a trifle metaphysical, or 
even casuistic. There are less abstract 
methods of getting at it. Pure material- 
ism, as also pure idealism, ends in (anni- 
hilation) nihilism. Now nonexistence is 
unthinkable, and the unthinkable can 
have no relation to the thinkable. Their 
conclusions, therefore, are not justified by 
logic, for this is related to the thinkable 
only. The argument which loses itself in 
the unthinkable at last, is not valid, be- 
cause there can be no reasoning interplay 
between the premise and the conclusion. 
The argument gets no confirmatory re- 
sponse from its conclusion, because the 
conclusion is not related to the argument. 



16 IMMORTALITY. 

The conclusions of these philosophers are 
therefore false. In order to establish our 
annihilation, they think they have to es- 
tablish the nonexistence of a God, and one 
of their strongest arguments against God 
possibility depends upon the alleged in- 
compatibility of the God idea and Nature's 
might-makes-right method. 

Now, all who do not deny the justifica- 
tion of the universe, must admit that the 
law of gravity is right. Those who do de- 
ny it are without the norm , as proved by 
their extreme exceptionalism. They are 
out of harmony with that universal sanity 
upon which depends social possibility and 
even existence itself. The spirit of their 
final conclusions courts self-destruction, 
and is, therefore, self-annulling. All who 
are straightly sane then, admit that the 
law of gravity is right. Now if a brickbat 
which is not worth half a cent drop onto 

a plate glass worth a hundred dollars, the 

l 



IMMORTALITY. 17 

latter will be ruined. Is gravity wrong in 
this case? We know it is right, though 
we have here — in a life detail — an unto- 
ward expression of its might. What is 
true of gravity, is true of all Nature's laws. 
All such wrongs, as we call them, result 
from a lack of human foresight ; and, as 
beneficently happens, this lack is necessary 
to our development, upon which depends 
our happiness. All natural forces, and all 
human acts dovetail precisely into the 
great scheme. If a physical tornado is 
not wrong (and who shall say that it is?) , 
a moral tornado is not wrong. Both are 
more than incident to the physical and 
moral economies, for both do good by 
clearing up the physical or moral atmos- 
pheres. 

The strongest fact in proof of the right- 
ness of Nature's might (which includes 
Nature's " cruelty") is 'expressed in the 
hither end of the evolutionary chain. The 



18 IMMORTALITY. 

more noble and refined we are, the more 
we shrink from the performance of any 
form of oppression or cruelty, the more we 
hate and abjure the might-is-right princi- 
ple — as we understand it. This marvel- 
ous fact represents the white blossom of 
evolution — the culminative glory of natu- 
ral unfoldment. Yet this spiritual deli- 
cacy and sweetness — resplendent phase of 
divinity — is the direct outcome of that ev- 
olution which we call "infinitely cruel/' 
Being such, it holds the essence of the 
travailing past with all its blood and ago- 
ny ; it is the past condensed into the pres- 
ent. And here is a miracle, for that stem 
whose joints mark aeons, and whose tex- 
ture is injustice and heartlessness (as we 
see it) blooms at last into the highest al- 
truistic possibility . The blossom seems 
directly to contradict its stem, but we 
know this cannot be, for Nature cannot 
stultify herself. The rose never blooms 
on a jimson weed. Somehow — and the 



IMMORTALITY. 19 

subtleties underlying this pregnant "some- 
how" outreach human understanding — 
somehow altruism is the consistent output 
of all (as we think) that is the reverse of 
it. Altruism being right, Nature's "cruel" 
might is right. 



f 



CON III. 

HE earth is the sufficient cause and 
source of all we have, or of all we 
know anything about. Everything comes 
from, and returns to, the earth ; she is in- 
deed, "Mother earth. 



) ) 



PRO III. 

THIS is a stock argument, and is gen- 
erally accepted as about unanswera- 
ble. The fact is, the earth, at most, fur- 
nishes less than one-half of all we possess 
and are related to. It would produce 
nothing at all if it were not for the sun. 
If the earth is the mother, the sun is the 



20 IMMORTALITY. 

father Then think of the millions of 
other relatives the earth has, all contribu- 
ting something toward her wellbeing. 
Note that to contribute toward the earth's 
welfare, is to contribute to our welfare. 
Food is "stored sunlight," and the possi- 
bility of our existence depends upon food. 
All in all, it is very probable that we get 
more from the sun than we get from the 
earth. We get something from the moon ; 
we get something from the comets . They 
do not exist in vain. [Vain existence is 
impossible, for it would have to depend 
upon self-extinction; i. e., no existence .J 
Then, the starry heavens — think what we 
get from them ! That unspeakable blue, 
with its awesome depths, and the far and 
resplendent suggestiveness of the beauti- 
ful stars — who shall measure the refining 
and spiritualizing influence of these? 
That celestial exaltation which is nameless 
for its supernalism, we get, and out of the 
vastness of infinitely repeated catasterisms 



IMMORTALITY. 21 

we catch the spirit — the silent Te Deum of 
the universe. We are citizens, not merely 
of this world, but of the universe. Man 
is, therefore, in the largest sense, a cosmic 
epitome, and he is not tethered by earthi- 
ness. 



CON IV. 

fHE existence of mind depends wholly 
upon the fact of a nervous structure. 
The brain secretes mind as the liver does 
bile. 



PRO IV. 

AVE you studied this principle that 
we call natural conservatism? Do 
you believe that the squirrel — and in fact 
all animals which do not migrate or hyber- 
nate — have foresight? Do you believe 
they are provident, in that sense in which 
a human being is provident? — in a word, 




22 IMMORTALITY. 

that while, in general, they reason almost 
none at all, in this relation their reason 
is equal to that of a human being's? Does 
the size and conformation of their brains 
justify any such conclusion ? Does the 
squirrel say to himself — actually say to 
himself — "Winter is approaching, and I 
must lay in a store of nuts, for otherwise 
I shall starve"? We know he does no 
such thing. He lays in his store under 
an irresistible stress which is wholly inde- 
pendent of squirrelness in itself. He does 
it just anyhoiv, and just because, so far as 
his little mental fraction is concerned. 
The same is true of the bee in the con- 
struction of its comb. Here is a piece of 
mechanism which is marvelous for the 
amount of subtle thought expressed in it. 
Did the bee, with its nearly invisible 
brain-speck, think this out? Do they 
teach their young how to do it? We pos- 
itively know they do not . A young swarm 
may be entirely shut off from communica- 



IMMORTALITY. 23 

tion with other bees, and they will con- 
struct their comb just the same. Would 
it not be something past wonder if the 
mechanical ingenuity of an insect were so 
superior to that of a human being, that it 
could achieve a mechanical effect which is 
insusceptible of improvement? Twist, and 
dodge as we may, the conclusion that this 
has been thought out for them, is utterly in- 
escapable. Science has it that the work 
of insects, etc., is "automatic." That 
may satisfy science, but it is not philoso- 
phy. Philosophy is Intellect's religion — 
Logic's piety ; Science is Philosophy's valet. 
There can be no such thing as automatism 
per se, unless there can be such things as 
causeless effects. This "automatism," as 
we scientifically call it, is, in fact, intel- 
lectual manifestation. The honey-comb 
reflects mind, and a reflected ray is only 
the original ray bent a little. Here then 
is mind, infallible mind; mind to which 
error is impossible, and who shall be dar- 



24 IMMORTALITY. 

ing enough to say it depends upon a nerv- 
ous structure ! Whence, mind without 
gray matter is not only possible, but is the 
largest fact in the universe. 

This, and similar conclusions are ob- 
jected to by material thinkers on the 

ground that they are the output of mental 
self-involvement. This gray matter efflu- 
ence which we have named mind, is suffi- 
cient unto its own self and precincts only 
— it cannot outreach its tether. In a 
word, the conclusion that mind is possible 
without gray matter, is itself a gray-matter 
conclusion — the creation of a gray-matter 
mind. The point of departure from which 
it is derived is intrinsic, whereas to make 
it valid, this point would have to be ex- 
trinsic to our sphere of thought. The con- 
clusion is the result of an ultra form of 
introspection, extrospection being impos- 
sible in the case. To reason competently 
in the matter, the ego would have to get 



IMMORTALITY . 25 

out of, and beyond itself — up into an alien 
thought atmosphere, etc. 

The objection would easily stand if my 
conclusion had an eliminative instead of 
an absorptive, and assimilative origin. 
All I know I have absorbed from my en- 
vironment. I have not evolved it from 
mental selfness. Included in my extra- 
physical assets, is my ability to reason, 
and this is derived from the comparabili- 
ties of my knowledge items, together with 
their inter-auras of meanings. General 
mind is the major fact. It specializes 
into simple or complex ideas to which it 
gives concrete expression. It has been 
said that "there is a thought behind every 
natural object." The truth is, the object 
itself is the thought itself materially ex- 
pressed to put it within reach of our spe- 
cial senses . Primarily we get our thoughts 
from the cosmos, and only secondarily from 
ourselves and from each other. They 
must be poured into us from the source of 



26 IMMORTALITY. 

all thought, before we can pour them out. 
Without further expansion along this line, 
it is easily apparent that my conclusion 
in regard to non-neural mind, depended 
upon merely natural, unsophisticated, 
helpless receptivity. I, as a medium, 
simply bent the original, incoming ray. 

But let us look at it from another view- 
point. I think I can safely posit as a ba- 
sic proposition that reasoning is reasoning. 
It follows as a corollary that, other things 
being equal, a particular deduction of a par- 
ticular mind, is no more nor less valid than 
any other deduction of this same mind,. Is 
the quality of reason in high C, different 
from that in low C? If it is, it will de- 
volve upon our skeptic friends to show 
why it is different. That reason which su- 
pervises our daily affairs ; that makes in- 
telligence, culture, society, human govern- 
ment, civilization and life itself possible 
— when, where, how (and if it must be 
done), why must Ave put a check upon it? 



IMMORTALITY. 27 

I must still maintain that my conclu- 
sion in regard to non-neural mind — mind 
without gray matter — is legitimate, and 
doubtlessly correct. 



CON V. 

Everything that has a beginning has 
an ending. We began at birth; we will 
end at death. 



PRO V. 

In the first place, if we began at birth, 
it does not necessarily follow that we shall 
end at death. The grain of wheat under- 
goes a form of death only to spring into 
new life ; is not man as worthy of a new 
life as is wheat? This by the way. 

Living within the immediate, and the 
present, and in relation to the grossness 
of material manifestation, our instant 
judgments are superficial and circum- 



28 IMMORTALITY. 

scribed. We mistake seeming absences of 
evidential shades for real presences of 
positive testimony. Our immediate judg- 
ments are derived from the contemplation 
of only a fraction of Nature's clare-obscu- 
ro. Our relation to the ultra supraphysi- 

cal may be likened to that of the water 
grub to the atmosphere. To him, the little 
pond he is in is the universe , and from all 
the material signs available to him, it is 
unthinkable that he will emerge from his 
humble estate , and on glittering wings , 
skim the invisible ether of an upper world. 
No dragon fly ever returned to explain the 
matter to him. He has been standing up- 
on a bare assertion — just what the above 
con is. His mysterious disappearance 
from his nether world is darkly interpret- 
ed by the remaining grubs as his extinc- 
tion, just as many of us construe a mer- 
gence into that master opprobrium (as the 
resenting soul would have it), death. 



IMMORTALITY. 29 

It is undoubtedly true that everything 
that has a beginning, has an ending. 
What reckless man shall say his soul had 
a beginning f Let him study his lineage. 
Let him go back through his progenitors 
till he reaches the monkey. Did he begin 
with the simian? Rather he was almost 
here — nearly a man. Let him go back to 
the sponge, and then on to protoplasm. 
Was protoplasm his beginning? Nay, it 
was merely an epoch in his projection. 
Let him go back in this endless chain of 
cause and effect. Where will he fetch up ? 
In the uncaused cause, to speak humanly ; 
in the eternal and unconditioned, to speak 
safely. Note, in this connection, that, in 
the last analysis, effect is but projected 
cause — note this, and you will better ap- 
preciate your royal lineage. You were 
always an individual ; then shall your in- 
dividuality ever end? When I say you, 
I do not mean your body, for that is not 
you. This long line was the potential ba- 



30 IMMORTALITY. 

sis of you, and it never had a beginning. 
How can it have an ending? You have 
at last reached the exalted estate of self- 
consciousness, or psychic entity. 

Here is another logical phase of the sub- 
ject ; No one will dispute the eternity of 
matter as matter. The various forms it 
takes on are ephemeral, of course ; but 
unlike matter, as such, that self-conscious 
essence, the human ego, is incapable of 
decomposition into a general form of iden- 
tical basic expression. The existence of the 
ego depends upon — not visible form or di- 
mension — but individual self-conscious- 
ness. This is it : You can destroy the 
definition of a particular aggregation of 
matter without destroying the matter of 
which it is composed. You cannot de- 
stroy the definition of a mind, without de- 
stroying the mind itself, for its very exist- 
ence depends upon its definition — not up- 
on what it is composed of. Its destructi- 
bility would constitute a single exception 



IMMORTALITY. 31 

to the universal rule, that not any thing 
is reducible to no thing. Nature being 
consistent, if we cannot destroy any part 
of the basis of objectivity, we cannot de- 
stroy any part of the basis of subjectivity, 
seeing particularly that the existence of 
objectivity depends upon that of subject- 
ivity . 

The human ego is a mighty epochal 
manifestation in that lineage which, we 
have seen, is eternal. It, its individual- 
ism, cannot be extinguished unless an 
eternal principle, entitatively expressed, 
can be annihilated. Materialists freely 
admit that the human ego is indestructi- 
ble in the same sense as that applied to 
grosser matter, forgetting that this is im- 
possible, since the very being of a mind 
depends upon its definition. The fact of 
the ego, is the fact of its indestructibility. 

If the ego were not eternal by right of 
origin, it would be so by right of its regal- 
itv with reference to matter. What would 



32 IMMORTALITY. 

become of cosmic consistency, if everlast- 
ing duration were given to a lesser, and 
denied to a greater? Finally, the ego is 
unending by virtue of its constitution. 
There is nothing in its texture that is sus- 
ceptible to erosion, oxydation, sepsis, or 
any form of material degeneration. What 
it is composed of is essentially eternal in 
its potentiality and its promise. 

CON VI. 

'ATTER is indestructible. Being 
indestructible, it is uncreatable. 
Therefore it- was never created. Hence 
there never was, and is not now, a Creator. 



PRO VI. 

IGOROUS, cruel, and implacable as 
this con seems to be at first blush, 
it is quite a spineless and harmless piece 
of logic so far as its eschatological bearing 





IMMORTALITY. 33 

goes. What if there never was, and is 
not now a Creator? That does not even 
jar the fact of God and immortality ; they 
always were and always are. This, of 
course, is a bare assertion, but it has the 
advantage of coinciding with intuition, 
or more properly, human instinct. It is 
about certainly true that nothing was ever 
created, for to create — in the proper sense 
— is to evolve something from nothing. 
The proposition held in this con is quite 
unstable at best, for it predicates an all- 
inclusive something of what we know but 
little about. What is this elusive thing 
we call matter? Simply, we do not know. 
How then can we make it the object of a 
comprehensive asseveration? Finally, the 
con is totally invalid, for the reason that 
its conclusion (being unthinkable) can 
have no relation to the argument. Our 
materialistic friends must reconstruct it 
in some way. 

3 



34 IMMORTALITY. 

CON VII. 

fHE results of environal pressure are 
generally mistaken for the evidences 
of design. The fitness of things depends 
upon the stress of necessity, and this in- 
heres in the constitution of matter. 



PRO VII. 

Jfr* ET me submit a counter proposition : 
«» Mistaking the means of design for 
original constitution, is a common mis- 
take of philosophers. A man conceives 
the design of a piece of mechanism. The 
design is primal, and there it is at head- 
quarters , unmaterialized. He proceeds to 
materialize it through environal pressure, 
which consists of material, tools, and mus- 
cular force. The movements and relations 
of these are made to be subject to the de- 
sign, because it is primitively and motive- 
lv related to them. Now man is a micro- 



IMMORTALITY. 35 

cosm , and as such is a copy of the macro- 
cosm ; i. e., he is the cosmos in miniature. 
This is partially true of all living things . 
This fact grows out of the assertiveness of 
the primal facts, life and mind. In him, 
therefore, the cosmos repeats itself to the 
limit of his possibilities. The cosmos is 
controlled by intelligence ; man, the little 
cosmos, is controlled by mind. The great 
Kosmos originates designs, and through 
environal pressure, gives them concrete 
expression; the little cosmos, man, does 
exactly the same. The process could not 
be otherwise consistently with consistency . 
There is no break between the macrocosm 
and the microcosm — it is all Nature from 
top to bottom. The mind finds its object- 
ive correlate, not in the phenomenon but 
in the noumenon. It is seen then, that the 
design hypothesis is in perfect agreement 
with Nature's whole spirit and manner, 
and that environal pressure occupies a sec- 
ondary place. According to this method 



36 IMMORTALITY. 

of reasoning, the design theory seems to 
stand. 

About every skeptical writer has had a 
whack at poor old Dr. Paley's watch illus- 
tration, and has demolished its effective- 
ness to his own complete satisfaction. 
The fallacy of the watch example is estab- 
lished by the following stock, and stand- 
ard argument : We examine- a watch and 
conclude it was designed, and therefore 
had a designer. The conclusion is correct, 
but (for an unexplained reason) if we fol- 
low the same line of argument further, the 
conclusion will be incorrect. That is, our 
logic will recoil on itself ! This by the 
way. 

The materialist's great counter argu- 
ment, however, runs this way: We ex- 
amine a man and find that he is immeas- 
urably more complex than a watch. He 
then must have had a designer. Follow- 
ing the same train of reasoning, his de- 
signer must have had a designer, and so 



IMMORTALITY. 37 

on without end. The demolishing feature 
of the argument is made to depend upon 
the interminability of the series. It cannot 
be denied that the series is infinite, but, 
(and I ask in all fairness) ivhat of it? We 
do not quarrel with time, nor space, nor 
matter, nor even so proximate a thing as 
a mathematical series, for being infinite . 
Every chain of cause and effect runs back 
into the infinite, but we easily tolerate 
the fact. Can any one give me a fair and 
rational reason for objecting to the infin- 
ity of the watch series ? After all, though, 
you do not have to accept this as an infi- 
nite series, for it is not that — it is an infi- 
nite fact. It is not an infinite series, for 
the unshakable and eternal reason that 
an infinite series of infinities is self-contra- 
dictory, and therefore impossible. Su- 
premacy cannot be duplicated, for there 
can be but one supreme. The idea then, 
of a series of supremes, is self-destructive, 
and so without the range of sanity. There 



38 IMMORTALITY . 

could not be two Gods of the universe, 
much less a series of them, unless it is a 
fact that God is not God ! Paley's series 
finds its natural and inevitable terminus 
and home in God. If it is infinite, it is 
only in the sense that God is infinite . 

Finally, if there were no other objec- 
tion to this materialistic argument, it is 
self-condemned and invalid, because, at 
last, its justification depends upon the 
unthinkable. Thinkability is such be- 
cause it is not anything else — not because 
it is antithetically related to unthinkabil- 
ity. No relation is possible in the case, 
with reference to the unthinkable. The 
foregoing being true, we can think of, 
and utilize, the fact of the unthinkable, 
but we cannot think of, nor use, the un- 
thinkable in fact ; how can we deny then , 
the vast preponderance of evidence in fa- 
vor of design? 

All who accept evolution, must admit 
that "in the beginning," so to put it, the 



IMMORTALITY. 39 

manward push started. Design being 
ruled out by grosser materialism, we are 
confronted with the irrepressible question, 
why did this pressure begin? The ines- 
capable anti-design answer is — "because." 

The manward stress persisted until man 
became an accomplished fact. No one 
will dispute that he had to exist potential- 
ly in the cosmos before he could exist 
manifestly as an integer, just as the watch 
had to exist ideally before it could exist 
really. There being no design, why — ex- 
cept just "because" — did he exist poten- 
tially in the universe? 

According to anti-design philosophy, 
man is adaptable to his environment, or 
it to him, for only the physical reason 
that he is a product of it. It acknowl- 
edges that there is not only a physical, 
but a preceding intellectual, reason why 
the watch is adaptable to man, and he, to 
it. Here the logical situation would fall 
into this formula : The difference between 



40 IMMORTALITY. 

the intellectual possibilities of intellect 
and those of dumb force or matter, is in- 
tellectually favorable to the latter. The 
reason this is so is — " because. " 

The watch fits man no more accurately 
than the horse does. Man was capable of 
designing and making the watch ; he was 
not capable of designing and making the 
horse. It required a capability almost in- 
finitely superior to human intellect to 
evolve the horse, so the matter was taken 
in hand by dumb force, or matter ! The 
reason for this is — " because. " 

No sane person will deny that design is 
the force back of every human act. Man 
is part of the universe, and he is saturated 
with design. Why does he have it, and 
where did he get it? The anti-design an- 
swer is — "because." The problem pre- 
sented to the reader is this : How many 
"becauses" will it require to outweigh one 
logically certain reason-why? 



IMMORTALITY. 41 

CON VIII. 

Knock a man on the head, and where 
is his mind? Sound sleep also puts it 
out of evidence. It is a fact that mind 
deteriorates evenly with cerebral degene- 
ration. As the brain is, so is the mind. 
Whence, the brain is responsible for the 
existence of intellect. 



PRO VIII. 

The foregoing is the master con. This 
is because of the ego's close intimacy with, 
and constant dependence upon, the brain 
during all this life. There are two theo- 
ries in regard to the mind's relation to the 
brain. One is that the brain produces 
mind, as the liver does bile ; the other is 
that the brain is merely the medium 
through which mind manifests itself. 
Most modern skeptics admit that the 
brain does not create mind, except in that 



42 IMMORTALITY. 

sense in which a rose creates its color and 
fragrance . The rose is capable of special- 
izing force into color and odor. The 
brain specializes it into intellect, emotion, 
etc. [It will not profit us to inquire here 
what the rose and brain themselves are, 
and where they came from.] The consti- 
tution of the brain is such that it can spe- 
cialize general force into the specific ex- 
pression, mind. 

This is no better than the hypothesis 
that the brain secretes mind as the liver 
does bile, for it makes the ego as evanes- 
cent and unstable as is the rainbow. In 
effect, the theories are identical ; so that I 
shall not consider them separately. The 
fact, though, that our materialist friends 
admit that the brain is only an instru- 
ment through which mental manifestation 
takes place, is a gain to be rejoiced over. 
Which of the two theories I have spoken 
of, is true? Upon the doubtless answer 
to this question hangs either eternal 



IMMORTALITY. 43 

hope's, or eternal despair's, justification. 

According to the usual way of looking 
at this question, neither position seems to 
have any advantage of the other. Under 
either hypothesis, it is claimed that all 
mental phenomena can be accounted for. 
A crippled engine will give crippled evi- 
dence, though we know that the steam is 
not crippled. The same is true with ref- 
erence to brain and mind. 

To this, our materialist friend wi.ll ob- 
ject that certain conditions of the brain — 
as intoxication, etc. — change the very -na- 
ture of the man ; change him from an op- 
timist into a pessimist ; change him from 
a kind husband and parent into a brutal 
tyrant, etc. So be it, but is it not as rea- 
sonable that a balked mind should express 
itself viciously, as that a balked brain 
should do the same, especially when we 
remember that if the brain creates mind, 
it is superior to it? Intense indignation, 
and even murderous anger, are within 



44 IMMORTALITY. 

sanity, but is not its cause always some- 
thing that has neither dimension nor 
weight, as the brain has? If a man in- 
sult you — you, I mean, not your coarsely 
material brain — who resents it, you or 
your brain? If your brain secretes venge- 
ful mentality, what else but you causes it 
to do it? Which is controlling this mat- 
ter, you or your brain — which is Com- 
mander-in-chief? Does it not look like it 
were the soul behind the brain which 
takes moral cognizance of things? Is it 
probable that if the brain produces mind, 
it is subject to the mind's dictation? If you 
object that the brain secretes not only 
general mind, but each particular phase 
of it, such as murderous impulse in a 
given case ; that it does this without being 
dictated to, then it devolves upon you to 
show why it does it. It does not act with- 
out a cause, and the cause is necessarily 
something extrinsic to itself. The cause 
is mind. Is it your brain that gets pleas- 



IMMORTALITY. 45 

ure from beautiful music, or is it you ; or 
are you and your brain identical ? Your 
brain weighs between forty-six and fifty 
ounces ; is that the weight of the human 
ego? It seems plain that the organs of 
sense are mere telephones, connecting you 
with your environment, and that the 
brain is the grand central receiving and 
despatching station, in which you are the 
operator. This easily accounts for low 
orders of insanity, for if any of these or- 
gans are out of order, and consequently 
send in false reports, you have generally 
no choice but to accept them as true, and 
you act accordingly. An intrasystemic 
disorder may give rise to the lower orders 
of insanitv, but is it conceivable that in- 
sanity resulting from a moral cause, such 
as disappointed love, etc., (things entire- 
ly extraneous to both your body and your 
brain) should depend upon a bodily de- 
rangement? Carefully examine the brains 
of these people, and you get no sign, not 



46 IMMORTALITY. 

consistent with perfect sanity. Why 
should not the mind (being an organism) 
be subject to injury? The effect will not 
be eternal, because the cause will be dissi- 
pated, and cosmic optimism will eradicate 
the scar. 

finally, the very existence of the brain 
depends upon the precedent existence of 
mind. This is because the brain is object- 
ively related to the mind, and there could 
be no objectivity without subjectivity. It 
is equally true that the existence of sub- 
jectivity depends upon that of objectivity, 
but there is this difference : the brain 
might be wiped out of nature, and there 
would still be left plenty of objectivity for 
subjectivity to play upon ; but if subject- 
ivity were extinguished, there would be 
nothing left to make objectivity possible — 
it would be abolished. The mind can con- 
template the brain ; can the brain contem- 
plate the mind? It is true that mind can 
make an object of mind, but that only 



IMMORTALITY. 47 

proves its vast superiority, for nothing 
external to mind can make either an ob- 
ject, or a subject of itself. A destruction 
of all objectivity except one item, would 
not destroy subjectivity ; whereas a de- 
struction of subjectivity would destroy all 
objectivity. Thus, subjectivity seems to 
be next to self-existent, for it does not de- 
pend one-millionth part as much upon ob- 
jectivity for its existence, as the latter 
does upon the former for its existence. 
From all this, it would appear that the 
brain's relation to mind is not primary, 
but secondary. 

I submit the following as an axiom : 
An effect is dependently related to its cause ; 
therefore, to abolish an effect, we must abol- 
ish its cause. 

Although the truth of this is instantly 
self-evident, hard pressed objectors to some 
of its results will deny its truth. Some 
will attempt to show that an effect may 
outlast its cause ; others, that a cause may 



48 IMMORTALITY. 

outlast its effect ; others will take the po- 
sition that cause and effect are identical, 
positing that, in the end, effect is but pro- 
jected cause. Their arguments in defense 
of these objections have a surface plausi- 
bility, but are necessarily unsound. I will 
not refute them in detail here, for my 
space is worth more than the game would 
be. It is only necessary to submit two or 
three anticipatory arguments which com- 
prehend the whole question, and invali- 
date any counter reasoning. 

Thus : Nothing is an effect, unless it is 
being caused ; for what is it an effect of? 
Nothing is a cause, unless it is producing 
an effect ; for what is it a cause of ? To 
claim that cause and effect are identical, 
(which they ultimately are) is to beg the 
question ; for it rules out all possibility of 
discussion. It is plain, then, that (in 
proximate relations) cause and effect are 
complementarily related to each other, 
and that the existence of one of them de- 



IMMORTALITY. 49 

pends upon the existence of the other. 
The following axiomatic proposition cov- 
ers the whole question : The only reason 
why a cause is a cause, is because it is 
causing something — not because it did or 
will cause something ; the only reason 
why an effect is an effect, is because it is 
being caused — not because it has been, or 
will be caused. Understanding, thus, the 
nature and scope of cause and effect, the 
following argument will need no amplifi- 
cation. 

The ego's distinctness from, and superi- 
ority to, the brain, is seen in the fact that 
we knoiv it can abolish the brain, whereas 
it can be only assumed that the brain can 
abolish the ego — with all the probabilities 
against the assumption. A sufficient 
physical shock will kill ; a sufficient men- 
tal shock will do the same. If the brain 
is the cause of mind, we have here a sin- 
gle instance in the history of the universe > 
4 



50 IMMORTALITY. 

in which an effect can become reversely a 
cause ! All other effects become causes 
in a progressive sense. It is impossible 
that the ego can be simultaneously an ef- 
fect and retrogressively a cause. As we 
knoiv it can abolish the brain, and do not 
know that the brain can abolish it, we are 
forced to the conclusion that the ego is 
causatively related to the brain. 

It is true that every effect is both an ef- 
fect and a cause (progressive) ; whence 
the chains of causes and effects. It is true 
too that the abolition of an effect is as 
truly the abolition of its cause, as it is 
true that the abolition of a cause is neces- 
sarily the abolition of its effect. But here 
is the difference : The destruction of a 
cause is directly the destruction of its ef- 
fect ; whereas the destruction of an effect 
is indirectly the destruction of its cause. 
The brain is the cause of many effects, all 
of which are destroyed coincidently with 
its destruction — as a brain ; the ego is the 



IMMORTALITY. 51 

cause of many effects, only one of which 
(the brain) is destroyed coincidently with 
its destruction as merely the brain's cause . 
It still persists as a most prolific and mar- 
velous cause, though it is no longer a brain 
cause, while the brain — with reference to 
the ego — is totally destroyed. Its func- 
tion in relation to our individual life is 
extinguished, while that of the ego is en- 
larged. I submit the foregoing as a fair 
argument in favor of the ego's separate- 
ness from the brain. 

The subject of the mind's distinctness 
from the brain is of such over-riding im- 
portance, that a more extended treatment 
of it is urgently justified. Therefore, at 
the risk of seeming tedious, I shall con- 
sider it at some length. 

"Other things being equal, the larger 
the brain, the greater the intellect." The 
statement is inverse ; it should be, The 
greater the intellect, the larger the brain. 
The brain is the answer, not the question, 



52 IMMORTALITY. 

just as the watch, the tree, etc., are the 
answers, and not the questions. The 
macrocosm and the microcosm are one, 
for Nature is self-consistent. The "deca- 
dence of senility' ' is a lie, told by a worn- 
out brain upon the intact mind. As the 
imprisoned culprit is shut out of social 
evidence, so the physically barred mind 
is shut out of manifestation. "Second 
childhood " pertains to man's perishable 
part. The mind's dependence upon nerv- 
ous structure for self-expression, is com- 
plete. To the mind insulated by senes- 
cence, there is nothing visible nor audi- 
ble ; no distance nor direction ; nothing 
but handicapped selfness. In these cases, 
there is no actual lack of mental co-ordi- 
nation ; the mind cannot do more than to 
respond to the distorted messages it re- 
ceives. One in mid-life who is highly in- 
tellectual, but is only slightly handicap- 
ped — say by partial deafness — is often, by 
the exigencies arising out of this disabili- 



IMMORTALITY. 53 

ty, made to appear dull, or a little "off n 
to those who do not know him. Take away 
all his senses, and what chance has his 
mind to assert itself ? We then call him 
mentally imbecile, although his mind is 
quite/as vigorous and brilliant as it ever 
was. How many naturally bright school 
children who are handicapped by a con- 
genital defect of the eyes, are pronounced 
dull by those who do not understand the 
case? The child does not complain of 
his eves, for he does not know but what 
he is perfectly natural in this respect. Re- 
move the visual defect, and the child may 
thereafter lead his class. 

The condition known as trance illus- 
trates, at once, the completeness of the 
mind's dependence upon, and its inde- 
pendence of, the brain. The victim is 
actively conscious of the preparations go- 
ing on for his funeral ! The body is prac- 
tically dead ; the mind is as sound as ever. 
Aphasia — amnesic aphasia (the other two 



54 IMMORTALITY . 

varieties have only a technical signifi- 
cance) , illustrates the mind's self-sufficien- 
cy even more startlingly. For a purely 
physical reason, many of the words dic- 
tated by the mind are eliminated by an 
incongruous substitution. Who, that did 
not understand the nature of the case, 
would not pronounce the victim insane ? 

In cases of concussion and other forms 
of coma, the patient generally fails to re- 
call any mental experiences had during 
the period of " unconsciousness. '" The 
usual inference is that the mind is abol- 
ished at the time, owing to the brain in- 
jury. Seeing that the most active men- 
tation is compatible with a nearly dead 
body, why should mentative cerebration 
cease, while vegetative cerebration goes 
actively on? The inconsistency is anti- 
thetically related to natural process. Mind 
being the supreme fact, no natural agency 
can remand it to second place. 

Memory seems to have almost, if not 



IMMORTALITY. 55 

quite, no dependence upon the condition 
of the brain. This is illustrated in a pe- 
culiar class of cases with which all experi- 
enced physicians are familiar. Such a 
case fell into my care not so long ago. It 
was a lady, intelligent and cultured. With- 
out a moment's warning, she would pass 
into an alternate selfhood which was pre- 
cisely identical with her normal one. She 
would often remain in this secondary per- 
sonality for weeks at a time. The pecu- 
liarity about it was the circumstance that 
while in one state, she had no remem- 
brance of anything related to the other. 
Now note this : so far as the lady knew, 
each of these states (with reference to the 
other) was a state of unconsciousness. This 
phenomenon is closely akin to somnam- 
bulism. While the somnambulist is pro- 
foundly asleep, so far as his brain is con- 
cerned, he is actively awake, so far as his 
intellect is concerned. Every faculty of 
the mind is keenly alert, often much more 



56 IMMORTALITY. 

so than in his brightest waking hours. 
Generally , he has no recollection of his 
dream. In fact no dream is remembered, 
excepting those which are coincident with 
the waking moment. This has been dem- 
onstrated unnumbered times. One talks 
in his sleep. You know he is dreaming. 
Next morning you tell him about it, but 
he remembers nothing of it. He talks 
five minutes before he awakens, but when 
told of it, cannot recall his dream . You 
awaken him ivhile he is dreaming, and he 
can generally relate every detail of his 
dream. If one awaken by jerks; i. e., 
with semisomnolent interruptions , his 
dream, owing to brief lapses of memory, 
will be incoherent and unreasonable. 

Sleep may be called a physiological co- 
ma. All other varieties of coma may be 
called pathological. But pathology is only 
a phase of physiology. All states of uncon- 
sciousness, so called, may be defined, 
therefore, as forms of sleep. It seems 



IMMORTALITY. 57 

about certain that no sleep is dreamless. 
While the mind has periods of quiescence, 
it never sleeps — at least in that sense in 
which the brain sleeps. The ethereal 
quality of its structure raises it above the 
needs of grosser organisms . It is well to 
state in this connection, that physical ap- 
pearances during " unconscious' ' condi- 
tions, are not indices to the victim's men- 
tal state . It is known that during epilep- 
tic seizures the patient's mind is floating 
through cloud-lands of entrancing beauty. 
The foregoing arguments and state- 
ments are intended to show that inability 
to recall mental experiences had during a 
state of coma, does not prove that at such 
times mentation is suspended. These 
same arguments go far in proof of the 
mind's distinctness from the brain. But 
the fact of the mind's intrinsic separate- 
ness from the brain, is susceptible of still 
stronger proof — a force of proof that is 



58 IMMORTALITY. 

nearly indistinguishable from demonstra- 
tion . 

Straight reason points to the ego as the 
essence and sufficient basis of all intellec- 
tion. For technical reasons, it may be all 
right to distinguish between consciousness 
and mental manifestation, positing that 
the former is, while the other exists, but 
ultimately such distinctions do not exist 
in fact. The ego is one and indivisible. 
"Subconscious intellection" is merely a 
phrase, and it does not express a truth ; 
for thought, without consciousness of it, 
would have to depend upon a self-contra- 
diction, which, as we know, is impossible. 
Thought is simply an expression of con- 
sciousness, and from which it is essential- 
ly inseparable. 

Consciousness perpetually radiates in 
manifestation. During our waking hours, 
it exists distributively , and is in immedi- 
ate touch with its environment. This dis- 
tribution dilutes its potency, as dispersion 



IMMORTALITY. 59 

of the sun's rays weaken their light and 
heat. The mind can be focalized by re- 
moval of environal distractions. Sleep, 
cerebral shock, the coma of fevers, etc., 
do it. The feats the mind is capable of 
while in this concentrated state, are as- 
tounding. It seems to me that there is 
nothing else within the whole range of 
natural phenomena quite so marvelous as 
mental intensity and facility when insu- 
lated . 

The rapidity with which an impulse is 
carried from the brain to a remote part of 
the body, and vice versa, is very remark- 
able, but it is not comparable to the swift- 
ness of unshackled thought. As a coarse 
illustration of mental facility (under fo- 
calization) , even in the waking state : you 
shall see a lady who is an expert in mu- 
sic, sit at a piano and while another sings 
soprano, she will sing alto and play the 
piano accompaniment. This accompani- 
ment consists of the bass, with obligato 



60 IMMORTALITY. 

trimmings, so to speak. The bass clef is 
different from the treble clef, so that the 
left hand plays quite independently of the 
right hand. Has the lady three distinct 
and separate minds? We know she has 
but one mind. What is the explanation 
of this triple expression of it? The fact 
that the music is new to the lady rules 
out that impossible subterfuge of igno- 
rance — "automatism." We know that the 
lady's fingers could not have acted sanely 
if her mind had not been present. They 
could not have acted at all, if she had not 
willed them to do so. It is not supposa- 
ble that her will was not immanent 
throughout the performance. The as- 
sumption that a willed sum was attaina- 
ble without reference to its parts, is ab- 
surd, for it discredits intellective consist- 
ency. The whole is equal to the sum of 
all its parts, but under the assumption re- 
ferred to, we have a whole without parts 
— at most, parts in kind. Each part re- 



IMMORTALITY. 61 

ceives attention, and the substance of atten- 
tion is consciousness, of course. The 
parts are not clearly remembered in de- 
tail, because such memory is not required 
in the case. The resourcefulness, econo- 
my, and providence intrinsic to intellec- 
tion, are very wonderful. In such a case, 
the mind taxes the transmitting possibili- 
ties of the brain (sight, hearing, touch, 
co-ordination, etc.) to their limit. 

The comparative slowness of sense tele- 
graphy is illustrated in the kinetoscopic 
picture. The picture is comminuted, but 
the rapidity with which the parts succeed 
each other, exceeds the eye's differentiat- 
ing facility. We get only the sum. Twirl 
a spoked wheel rapidly, and the eye re- 
turns us only the sum of the spokes. 
Here then (if the brain secretes mind) we 
have an incalculable lack of synchronous 
consentaneity between its mentative, and 
other functions . In other words, the brain 
is not equal to itself — it is at once inferior 



62 IMMORTALITY . 

and superior to itself ! It creates a force 
that is its master, and to many of whose 
demands it is incapable of responding ! 
Either this must be assumed, or it must 
be concluded that there is a vast lack of 
balance and reciprocity between the brain's 
different parts, as between the frontal con- 
volutions and the nerves of special sense. 
How shall this be reconciled to Nature's 
consistency? 

The mind can, and often does, overtax 
the brain. Brain fatigue is common 
enough ; "mental fatigue" is unthinkable. 
You study till your head aches, or till 
your "brain is in a whirl." Does the 
brain, of its own volition, do this? If it 
does, can you give any reason ivhy it does 
so? Does the brain first secrete mental- 
ity, and then flagellate itself with this 
mind whip? Out of the intrinsicness of 
innate impulsion, we always say it this 
way : "J have overworked my brain ;" we 
do not say, "my brain has overworked 



IMMORTALITY. 63 

my mind," or "has overworked itself/' or 
"has overworked me. 9 ' The only consist- 
ent (?) materialistic conclusion possible, 
is that the brain is the mind, and that 
(just anyhow) it not only uses, but abuses 
itself; i. e., it, which is controlled by natu- 
ral conservation, controls this natural con- 
servation ! In the light of true philoso- 
phy, the matter is simple enough: the 
mind, being an independent entity, uses 
the brain, and sometimes uses it intem- 
perately. Its subjection to natural con- 
servation, is as its physical tenuity is to 
the brain's gross materiality — say one to 
a decillion. 

Only a little reflection is required to 
make plain to you the impossibility of the 
brain, or anything else, controlling itself. 
Our moralists give us very convincing lit- 
tle homilies upon the importance of i 'self- 
control ;" and the "New Thought" cham- 
pions add to self-control, " auto-sugges- 
tion. " What avalanches of glittering, if 



64 IMMORTALITY. 

hazy, rhetoric we are getting these days 
upon self-suggestion, self-control, "at-one- 
ness" with God, etc. There is no space 
between you and yourself for action and 
reaction, nor for the interplay of any sort 
of influence. To suggest to yourself, or to 
control yourself, you would have to be ca- 
pable of self-transcension — a yelping ab- 
surdity ! Such a feat would only be equal- 
led by the physical one of lifting yourself 
by your boot straps. I would not abolish 
the popular idea of "self-control," etc., 
(which is environal control) , but it is tire- 
some to know that most writers who scin- 
tillate so blindingly about it, take the 
phrase, in itself, so seriously. 

Right here, if a further digression will 
be pardoned, I should like to protest 
against that false philosophy which has, 
of late, gained such a loothold amongst 
ready writers. It seems to depend prima- 
rily upon intemperate imagination, con- 
joined with inability to resist the fascina- 



IMMORTALITY . 65 

tion of paradox. This weakness is respon- 
sible for much nebulous fustian, which 
represents scarcely less than the crime of 
obfuscation. Out of hundreds of exam- 
ples, I select one, both for its illustrative 
force, and on account of the eminence of 
the man who furnishes it. 

A preacher of international fame — a 
fame justly earned — in a recent lecture, 
which involved the discussion of high art , 
said : 

"The profoundest depths of mental life 
lie below the plane of consciousness. That 
which we interpret in terms of conscious- 
ness is always the shallowest part of our 
being, below which lie 'the abysmal deeps 
of personality.' " 

Now to be capable of knoiving (being 
conscious of) this, one would have to be 
capable of projecting his consciousness 
(as if it were separable from self ! ) below 
the plane of consciousness ! 



66 IMMORTALITY. 

Again, is it possible to interpret (a con- 
scious act) in other than terms of con- 
sciousness? What other terms are rela- 
tionable with the ego? Shall we interpret 
in terms of unconsciousness? 

"The abysmal deeps of personality" is 
beautiful rhetoric, but do those deeps go 
below the reality of self-consciousness? Is 
there a single element of personality not 
in relation with consciousness ; for, with- 
out consciousness, is there anything? Con- 
sciousness is not a function of selfness ; it 
is selfness. What is personality but the 
sum of one's characteristics, and what do 
these come from but the fact of selfness, 
and what is the condition precedent to 
this but that which we call consciousness ? 

In the same lecture, after having put 
the child above the adult in ethical in- 
sight, he says : 

"A genuine myth, a true legend, has 
more of ethical and spiritual nutriment 



IMMORTALITY . 67 

than toraes of philosophy, than volumes 
of metaphysics . ' ' 

First, is it true that immaturity is su- 
perior to maturity? If not, and we know 
it is not, is it true that immaturity is more 
mature than is maturity? The lecturer 
cites the fact that the child will ask ques- 
tions which you cannot answer. Is it not 
equally true that, when grown, he can ask 
these same questions, and ten thousand 
more, which you cannot answer? Is it 
not rank nonsense to deny that, except in 
the matter of innocence and frankness, to 
go back to raw childhood, would be to 
retrograde? An honest paradox is an ef- 
fective thing, but see what fraudulent 
ones lead to. 

What he says about the value of the 
myth and legend, is only superficially 
true. It cannot be profoundly true that 
the unreal is more psychically integrative 
than is the real. The myth, etc., fasci- 
nates and pleases because it affects to real- 



68 IMMORTALITY. 

ize the ideal. The ideal is the pictured 
response to the inventive and aspiring 
mind's outreachings . It is always beau- 
tiful — of its kind. The yearning for, or 
belief in, the ultimate realization — this 
more than anything else furnishes ethical 
and spiritual nutriment. After all then, 
it is an ultimate fact that only reality, that 
is, truth, satisfies. 

There is another form of psychic excur- 
sion in the farthest reaches of which are 
caught hints of transcendent facts and 
possibilities, but such experiences are nei- 
ther below nor above consciousness — they 
are simply of consciousness. This con- 
sciousness, which is the basis of the ego, 
is the most fundamental of all facts. So 
far as man is concerned, self-identity is 
the master fact of the universe . 

There are subconscious, and supercon- 
scious, facts, millions of them, but we 
know this much only from past observa- 
tions . What is without the range of con- 



IMMORTALITY. 69 

sciousness is unthinkable, and therefore, 
to us, is nonexistent. They can contrib- 
ute nothing toward the ethical or spirit- 
ual nutriment of our souls. 

Watch, in your readings, dear reader, 
and you will find that such false philoso- 
phy and metaphysics as I have just dis- 
cussed, are not exceptional among trans- 
cendental writers , but are the rule . 

But now further, in regard to mental 
condensation and facility : It has been 
seen that even in our ordinary diffuse 
state of mind, it will ideate with a swift- 
ness immeasurably beyond the transmit- 
ting capacity of nerve fibrils. In startling 
contradistinction to the powers of diffuse 
mentality, as during our waking hours, 
are those of the insulated mind. Thus, if 
one is drowning, or falling to what seems 
certain death, everything else is banished 
from contemplation, and a review of one's 
entire life may take place in the fraction 
of a second. I had that experience once 



70 IMMORTALITY . 

in a railroad accident. Again, one may 
dream (?) the solution of a difficult prob- 
lem which, owing to objective diversions, 
he failed to solve while awake. This is a 
common experience. According to current 
science and philosophy, the condition of 
somnolence is one of rest. The correct- 
ness of this conclusion is beyond question. 
Yet, if the brain secretes mind, see what 
a frensied paradox is presented in the fact 
that when the brain is asleep, perfectly 
idle, completely out of evidence, not ca- 
pable of mentation at all, it is capable of 
feats in intellection far beyond its powers 
when widest awake ! The resulting form- 
ula would be this : The brain acts most vig- 
orously when it does not act at all. What 
are we to do with a theory based upon 
such a proposition as that? 

I cannot refrain from giving one more 
illustration of the insulated mind's facile 
possibilities. I was suddenly awakened 
one fourth of July morning by tho explo- 



IMMORTALITY. 71 

sion of a giant cracker out on the side- 
walk. This explosion, by an instantane- 
ous and infinitely occult process, became 
the fitting culmination of a climacteric lit- 
tle drama in which I figured as the lead- 
ing character. If this dream (?) were 
written out, it would fill twenty pages of 
this little book ; and it was all elaborated 
in the fraction of a second. Fortuitous 
coincidence of the dream with the explo- 
sion, is excluded by the fact that such ex- 
periences are very common. Everybody 
has had similar experiences — I have had 
fifty of them during my life. Think what 
focalized mentality is capable of doing, as 
exemplified in the case related. It can re- 
duce the event to simultaneity and identity 
ivith its prophecy. These cases illustrate 
at once the amazing swiftness of thought, 
the intrinsic resourcefulness of pure men- 
tality, and a nameless quality that would 
seem to include actual prescience, and a 
sleepless stress of congruity . 



72 IMMORTALITY. 

Finally, the mind's independence of, 
and superiority to, time and space, marks 
it as — next to God — the ultimate and su- 
preme fact of the universe. Its capability 
of eliminating time as an element of its 
expression, is seen in its ability to com- 
pass, in a single impulse, the initiative, 
the interim, and the event. Its power to 
put distance out of account, is seen in the 
fact that it can touch the North star as 
quickly as it can embrace the nearest ob- 
ject. Along with these deific qualities — 
if not a consequence of them — is the glory 
of the esthetic hierarchy with its eternal 
vistas of light and sweetness ; and beyond 
this — by ethical additions — the ego reach- 
es that personal hyperionism which is its 
own evidence of its own immortality . 

In the foregoing, considerable allusion 
has been made to dreams. I feel that the 
subject is worthy of further consideration. 

Now, to dream — what is it? Does a 
dream consist in '"the passage of a train 



IMMORTALITY. 73 

of images and fantasies through the mind 
while one is asleep , ' ' as the dictionary has 
it? Note, in this connection, that if the 
brain is responsible for mind, one has no 
mind while he is asleep. But let that 
pass. There are some far-reaching ques- 
tions in connection with dreaming, which 
require to be answered some time, in some 
way. Are the elements of dreams illu- 
sions, or are they realities? Are they born 
wholly out of subjectivity, and is it a fact 
that the mind surpasses itself by evolving 
images, etc,, which outreach its perspica- 
city and impose upon its credulity? In 
other w r ords, do effects rise superior to 
their cause in this instance? These ques- 
tions answer themselves through logical 
suggestion, but further on they will be 
more or less directly discussed . 

Are dreams subject to one fundamental 
law, or are there different laws underlying 
different classes of dream phenomena? 
Owing to the comprehensive consistency 



74 IMMORTALITY. 

of Nature, as made conclusive by her 
analogies, does it not seem certain that 
dreams are subject to just one basic law? 
If this is true, all dreams are primarily 
cohesive and consistent, and the incon- 
gruousness of many of them , as interpret- 
ed by the waking mind, does not depend 
upon fundamental variations. This is 
true, because we know that in at least two 
classes of dreams there are no inconsisten- 
cies. If two classes are congruous, all 
must be so, at bottom, for all are subject 
to the same primary control. It is cer- 
tain, as before stated, that whether one 
remembers, or partly remembers, or whol- 
ly forgets a dream, depends upon his 
mode of awakening. If he awakens sud- 
denly, he will clearly remember his dream 
and it will be coherent and reasonable. If 
he awaken slowly, or by jerks, his dream 
will be distorted and irrational, owing to 
little lapses of memory. One will dream 
the solution of a difficult problem, which, 



IMMORTALITY. 75 

owing to environal distraction, he failed 
to solve during his waking hours. This 
is very real ; there is no hint of fantasy 
about it — the dreamer awoke clearly and 
without halts. The somnambulist per- 
forms extraordinary feats w r hile profound- 
ly asleep. He does things with which no 
possible illusion is connected. He does 
them straightly and sanely. Here are two 
classes of performances which differ from 
the same in the awake state only by being 
marked by superior mental acuteness. If 
a dream is a dream, why then the why of 
dreaming is all-inclusive ; and further, it- 
is a fact that mind is mind whether one is 
awake or asleep. 

We speak of the subliminal estate as 
the "subjective self/' forgetting that the 
possibility of subjectivity depends upon 
the certainty of objectivity. Mind is im- 
possible without its complement — matter 
in some grosser form ; and therefore the 
metaphysical phrase, "the initiative/' 



76 IMMORTALITY. 

does not express a truth . Its truth would 
have to depend upon the mind's possibil- 
ity of self-transcension — an absurdity. 

In dreams then, the mind is related to 
objects, and necessarily objects not of its 
own creation. Since, in sleep, the sense 
avenues to the outer world are closed, 
where do these objects come from? They 
cannot be memory products, for the insu- 
lated mind would take instant cognizance 
of the fact, and refuse to accept them as 
independent and original facts. It is true 
that the mind is an image-maker, and it 
is true that images are objects, but the 
mind is always superior to its images and 
always estimates them at their real value . 
Images, etc., never address themselves to 
the mind as having come from without its 
precincts. It is true too that in sleep the 
mind contemplates, and is affected by, re- 
called facts, but it necessarily recognizes 
them as such. It is not deceived, because 
"self-deception" is impossible unless rela- 



IMMORTALITY. 77 

tionship can exist between — one ! Where 
do the objects which become related to the 
ego in dreams, come from? 

I dream of my daughter every night, 
and have done so ever since her death, 
which occurred over three years ago. In 
many of these dreams she labors to con- 
vince me of the reality of our experiences 
as opposed to the common belief with ref- 
erence to dream happenings. While un- 
der the stress of consistency, I am forced 
to admit the reality of dream experiences, 
the admission is qualified by the limited 
fact that the word "reality," in such con- 
nections, is narrow and technical in its 
significance. Thus, a "fantasy" is a real- 
ity, because it exists, and is a thing. I 
am not positively convinced that this 
qualification is logically essential to the 
sense situation with which I have con- 
nected it. 

Withal, the question ever recurs : In 
your dream conversations, is it you talk- 



78 IMMORTALITY. 

ing to yourself, or a product of your brain 
talking to you, or are there psychic chan- 
nels through which objects reach you? If 
the latter is a fact, is it not a very momen- 
tous fact? Does it not go far in proving 
the mind's distinctness from the brain? 
If this is true, is there any visible reason 
why the ego cannot exist independently 
of the brain? 

Dream prophecies with their subsequent- 
realizations are very marvelous. So far 
from being uncommon, it is not highly 
improbable that they are universal and 
without exception. A brainy friend of 
mine , who is a hard and uncompromising 
materialist, has informed me that all the 
great epochs and events of his life had 
been previously experienced by him in 
dreams. Many of these dreams occurred 
years before the period of their realiza- 
tion, or rather, their second realization. 
This peculiarity — to call it such — pertains 
to every member of his family, which in- 



IMMORTALITY. 79 

eludes his parents and brothers and sis- 
ters. They are all of them remarkable 
for the keenness of their intellects, and 
their mental and ethical sensitiveness. 
People of this temperament are apt to 
awaken suddenly and swiftly under the 
tension of an extraordinary dream. There 
are thousands of people who are extra- 
sensitive in this respect. I have discussed 
the subject with many of them. There 
are many more thousands who are only a 
little sensitive along this line . There are 
millions whose temperaments or awaken- 
ing methods are such that they about al- 
ways fail to remember dream experiences 
w r hich they re-act in outer life. Perhaps 
there are few people who, at some period 
in their lives, have not had a vague and 
hazy feeling of having existed in some 
other Avorld. This feeling, beyond doubt, 
I should think, has always resulted from 
re-experiencing a past dream experience. 
You have existed in another world — the 



80 IMMORTALITY. 

dream world. The Theosophists have it 
that these misty semi-recollections depend 
upon the fact of an actual pre-existence . 
There is no proof of this — it is mere day- 
dreamery. 

In that luminous arcanum which is the 
peculiar home of the soul, what feats in 
intellection are not possible ; what spirit- 
ual marvels are not probable? We know 
that dream prophecy is a fact. Is it be- 
yond thinkability that the insulated mind 
elaborates life syllabuses, and by control 
of native trend, secures successively their 
practical ratifications? How else can 
dream-prophecy be accounted for? I leave 
the pregnant subject with the reader, to 
be pondered by him much, or little, ac- 
cording to his estimate of its importance. 

I have said that the brain has nothing 
to do with memory. I think I have proved 
the truth of the proposition ; but I wish to 
add another proof which has just occurred 
to me. The brain is the mind's junior 



IMMORTALITY. 81 

partner during life, but it is not compe- 
tent to take care of the memory. Brain 
cells are utilized with every intellectual 
expression, but the moment the mind has 
used a cell, it (the cell) dies. There is no 
kind of cell in the brain , or any other part 
of the organism, that endures. Memory, 
therefore , cannot be stored in brain cells . 
The form (in gross) of tissues persists, 
but the fact that memory can absorb and 
retain peculiarity of contour, opposes the 
possibility of contour binding to, or in it- 
self, memory. Memory is a larger fact 
than is form. 

To a large extent, the ego is an aggre- 
gation of memories. To deprive one of 
all memory, would be to remand him to 
the helplessness of infancy. His only re- 
source would be instinct. He could not 
talk, walk, eat, drink, or even think ; he 
could only imbibe nutrition as the infant 

does. All we know, we have learned, un- 
6 



82 IMMORTALITY. 

less intuition is a fundamental fact. We 
learn through thought and practice . To 
think' is to relate, and relationship de- 
pends upon memory. Past practice would 
count for nothing, if memory were abol- 
ished. People have, owing to some ob- 
scure mental derangement, suddenly for- 
gotten a language. Notwithstanding they 
had practiced it for years, they could not 
speak a word of it. Temperament, bent, 
perspicacity, etc., pertain to the germ, 
and their development depends solely up- 
on memory. Self-identification itself de- 
pends upon memory. Mergence (abnor- 
mal) of most of the force essence of the 
several attributes into one — specially in- 
cluding memory — will account for the 
prodigy. 

Memory then, is nearly all there is of 
us. Being fractions of God, we necessari- 
ly conclude that he is an infinite sum of 
memories. We, as individualities, are very 
considerable items in God's memory. God 



IMMORTALITY. 83 

being eternal, we as individuals, have to 
be eternal. Each of us is a sum of mem- 
ories , plus our basic attributes ; and to be 
this, is to be an immortal soul. 

CON IX. 

IF THERE is a God, it would have 
been only fair for him to have direct- 
ly, and doubtlessly discovered himself to 
man. 



PRO IX. 
H Y ? Has any one ever given a 
good reason why he should have 
done this? Think now — think hard. To 
have done this would have been to have 
terminated an interminable climax. To 
have done this, God would have had to 
contradict himself; i. e., he would have 
had to extinguish himself. It is blessedly 
inconceivable that we shall ever know God, 




84 IMMORTALITY. 

for to know him we would have to be his 
infinite equal. This would dissipate the 
fact of Godship, and would destroy the 
possibility of human happiness, which 
must always depend upon advance; that 
is, the realization of noble aspiration. Al- 
ways approaching, but never reaching — 
this is the mode of moral evolution . It is 
a standard fact that the satisfaction of a 
desire is always unsatisfying . It is pro- 
foundly certain that things are exactly 
right, just as they are. The little " wrongs" 
of life in detail depend upon no cosmic 
fault, but upon our short-sightedness, 
tvhich is necessary to our progress and 
happiness. It all dovetails just right, be- 
cause our frailty is just as much a cosmic 
output, as is the environment related to it. 
It has been shown that God could not 
make himself known to us except at the 
cost of his own existence ; and then there 
would be no God to inform us even that 
he had been . All this is the consequence 



IMMORTALITY . 85 

of God's infinity — finite data are unrela- 
tionable to those of the infinite. So far, 
then, from it being possible for us to know 
God, it is impossible for us to even know 
that God is. It is therefore clear that only 
a belief in God is compatible with his ex- 
istence ; for to know that God is, is simul- 
taneously to know that he is not. Here 
is the supreme fact in this connection : 
While it is impossible for God to make his 
existence known to us without sacrificing 
it, it is also impossible for us not to absorb 
sufficient evidence of his being, to justify 
our belief in it. This would seem to be 
because we are a part — a very small part 
—of his universal expression. The me- 
diate, and possibly affirmative, as to evi- 
dence, are just sufficient to satisfy our ca- 
pacities. It does not satisfy our needs, 
for, happily, they never can be more than 
partly satisfied. The chasm between 
knowledge and belief, in this mighty mat- 
ter, is so vast, that the finite mind cannot 



86 IMMORTALITY. 

span it. We are not great enough to 
stand more than the belief; a positive 
knowledge of God would whelm, and an- 
nihilate us, because it would involve a di- 
rect relationship with the unrelationable . 
We speak of time and space as infinite, 
but we do not knoiv what infinity is ; be- 
cause it is unthinkable. All this is exact- 
ly right, as I have said before; for it 
leaves to us that great, unspeakable, beck- 
oning mystery upon which the progress- 
ive expansion of our souls must depend. 
To knoiv is to have reached ; to believe is to 
approach. We cannot live God, but we 
can, and do, live toward him. This is 
true of the vilest of us, for the Godward 
current is all-including . 

How we can believe in the possibility of 
what we know can not be realized to us in 
fact, seems a subtle question. It will seem 
less intricate if we remember that, in the 
last analysis, belief is only a confession of 
ignorance. This, however, does not affect 



IMMORTALITY. 87 

its justification, and its sanity. Belief is 
never part knowledge — that is impossible . 
We either know, or we do not know. The 
fact is primary, and includes all intelli- 
gent possibility. The truth of these state- 
ments is not disturbed, therefore, by the 
fact that one may only partly know a lan- 
guage, a trade, or a profession, etc. Doubt 
is the mother of belief ; doubtlessness the 
mother of unbelief; i. e., knowledge. We 
cannot simultaneously knoiv and believe a 
thing. This would be partly to know, and 
partly not to know a thing — a self-contra- 
diction. We know the sun shines — it is 
not a matter of belief. Belief always holds 
an element of doubt ; knowledge never. 

The varying concepts of God are inter- 
esting, as showing the differing degrees of 
individual enlightenment. No two per- 
sons have the same God, for God is a re- 
flex of one's method of thought. The an- 
thropomorphous God is a product of that 
mental primitiveness which cannot rise 



88 IMMORTALITY 

above the grossness of coarsely material 
proximities. The fact of man's distinct- 
ness from each item of his environment, is 
responsible for the attribution of human 
finiteness, with its limitations, to deity. 
Man's inventiveness and constructiveness, 
together with his separateness from his 
creations, have begotten a habit of thought 
which makes it difficult for the untrained 
mind to seize the idea of the uncondition- 
ed. God's immanence is not a reality, 
but is merely a phrase to many. And too, 
the idea of God's impersonal ubiquity 
seems, to many, to lack the warmth and 
graciousness that pertain to current no- 
tions of him. Only the ripe and cultured 
intellect can have a just concept of deity. 
Prayer and profanity are a direct out- 
come of the God fact. This is immeasur- 
ably reassuring, as will be instantly obvi- 
ous. You could do neither without God, 
and as you can do either, therefore, God 
is. All of us pray ; all of us swear, i.e., 



IMMORTALITY. 89 

abjure. Prayer is at once a confession of 
helplessness and a recognition of a higher 
power. Profane swearing is an admission 
of weakness and a confession to God. The 
weaker the man, the greater his profanity. 
Profane swearing is an oblique form of 
prayer. A great preacher in England un- 
derstood it when he said from his pulpit : 
"God damn the policy of the unspeakable 
Turk ! ' Profane swearing is not sinful 
in itself — it is only vulgar. To say that a 
peculiar order of human thought and pho- 
nation disturbs the equanimity of God, is 
to commit an atrocious blasphemy — con- 
ceding that blasphemy is possible. Pro- 
fane swearing, being coarse and vulgar, 
is ever to be reprobated. It cannot affect 
God, but it can injure man. 

That we all pray, will not be denied. 
That we all swear, is equally true. Who 
has not scented as much venom in a 
preaher's pshaw ! as he has in a sailor's 
damn? It is the soul of the word that 



90 IMMORTALITY. 

counts, not its articulate peculiarity. You 
can't cheat God by substituting " pshaw " 
for "damn," but for decency's sake say 
pshaw, and not damn. 

Prayer, I should define as : The appeal 
of an infinitesimal fraction of God to all the 
rest of God. I should define swearing as 
a noxious habit of speech. 



CON X. 

fHERE is such a large element of 
chance in natural manifestation, that 
we are justified in the conclusion that, at 
bottom, it is all chance. To illustrate: 
A man starts to go down town. By chance 
he takes Third street, though Fourth street 
would have done just as well. Just as he 
gets opposite a particular house , a chance 
gust of wind blows a loose brick off a 
chimney. By chance it falls just right to 
strike the man on the head and kill him . 
Who shall say this was all planned? Who 



IMMORTALITY. 91 

shall say it was not all pure chance? Per- 
haps half the natural events we observe 
are equally referable to chance, while it is 
reasonably certain that the other half de- 
pends upon chance, though less evidently 
so. Nature's scheme, or rather non- 
scheme, must be isomerous at least. 



PRO X. 

fHE LAST sentence of the foregoing 
con (and it is necessary to what pre- 
cedes it) kills off the entire con. It is an 
admission that all cannot be chance un- 
less Nature is consistent. Consistency and 
chance are opposed — they do not asso- 
ciate. 

Now, although the fatalistic phrase, 
4 * What is to be, will be," is in some sort 
a solecism, still it carries a truth. Every- 
thing that happens, happens because it 
has to happen. The brick's fatal drop 
only expressed a proximal epoch in a se- 



92 IMMORTALITY. 

quential chain . The chain was under in- 
flexible and immutable law. Law — con- 
trol — directs, and a directed movement is 
not, and cannot be, a chance movement. 
The specific action of the brick represent- 
ed the culminative manifestation of seve- 
ral converging elements, each of which 
was under the control of law. While this 
condensed expression was different from 
each of its elements, still it was their sum , 
so that if it was a lawful output, each of 
its elements was the same. In a word, 
chance is impossible, for its existence, not 
being subject to cause and effect, would 
have to depend upon self-creation — an ab- 
surdity. Even self-creation would have 
to depend upon cause and effect ; so that 
pure chance is absolutely impossible. 

Who has not seen hundreds of " chance 
pictures?" I have seen thousands of them. 
They are most frequently seen in the black 
and pink combinations of a grate fire. 
Many of these pictures are as nearly per- 



IMMORTALITY. 93 

feet as are those produced by the best 
skill of the best artist. Each of these 
"chance" pictures is a cause-and-effect prod- 
uct. It cannot be objected that this cause 
and effect is, itself, a chance one, for it is 
only one link of a chain that never began 
and will never end. There being no 
chance about it, how then shall we ac- 
count for it ! 

There seems to be but one explanation, 
and that depends upon the fact of natural 
hedonic stress. It was shown in pro i 
that beneficence dominates the universe. 
To demonstrate : Once in a life-time you 
may make a mis-step and sprain your an- 
kle ; but see how many millions of times 
you do not do it ; and so it is with refer- 
ence to everything else. Beneficence in- 
cludes the ethical, the esthetic, and the 
hedonic. Universal and special mind are 
in touch , and are reciprocally related. As 
the picture, under pleasure-giving press- 
ure , reads itself to you, so you read your- 



94 IMMORTALITY . 

self to it . Everything external to the ego 
is a quality of mentality, and being con- 
sists in interplay between universal and 
specific mind. Mountains, landscapes, 
trees, plants, flowers, etc., are pictured 
cosmic thoughts. "Chance" pictures are 
the same, only they are evanescent. 

But was not the combination of circum- 
stances in reference to the dropping brick 
a chance one in the sense that it was not 
planned? It was the kinetic expression 
of what had existed potentially in the con- 
stitution of things, and was therefore pre- 
destined. We cannot separate the idea of 
foreordination from that of intelligence— 
the thing was to be, and it ivas. 

If this is fatalism, is the fact a deplora- 
ble one? Can you give any good reason 
why fatalism is incompatible with good 
citizenship, pure morals, high culture, 
amiability and happiness ? In fact, is not 
that fearless, and comfortable resignation 
(recklessness?) characteristic of fatalists, 



IMMORTALITY. 95 

conducive to energy, success, and the en- 
joyment of life? With reference to suc- 
cessful living , is not the fatalist your true 
philosopher? Finally, does it not seem 
that if your immortality is a fact, it is 
such by predestination? Once the word 
•'predestination/' was the synonym of di- 
abolism ; but thanks to the sweet sunlight 
of modern civilization, it is shorn of its 
horrent ugliness. Now the word, with its 
consequent and friendly fatalism, bears 
only healing in its meaning. Further on, 
fatalism in its relation to man's "moral 
responsibility*' will be discussed. 



96 IMMORTALITY 



ADDITIONAL PR08. 

I CAN recall no other con of any conse- 
quence. I find I have a number of 
pros left, which have no rebutting cons, 
and which are at least as strong, and 
(may I say?) convincing, as are those I 
have produced. They are as follows : 



T 



PRO XI. 

H E whole truth is forever found 
in the mean — never in the extremes. 
The whole body of knowledge along any 
particular line of inquiry, may be dia- 
grammed by an ellipse. The actual points 
of the ellipse hold absolutely no hint of 
its content. They are indistinguishable 
from any other mere points. As we move 
toward the center, the quantity of truth 



IMMORTALITY. 97 

increases till we reach the middle, where 
we get the maximum, or ivhole expression. 
Pure materialism represents one extreme ; 
pure idealism, the other, with reference to 
human destiny. Materialistic philosophy 
is cold, hard, and heartless. To be a ma- 
terialist, is to be a pessimist. Pessimism 
is its own strongest protest against itself. 
Its spirit violates that natural conserva- 
tion upon which depends the social struct- 
ure, our self-perpetuation, our happiness, 
life itself, and in fact, the integrity of the 
universe . Pessimism is disintegrative , 
destructive — not integrative ; not con- 
structive. Its usefulness, like that of other 
" evils," is purely negative — it merely fur- 
nishes us something to kick away from. 

Pure materialism is extreme, just as 
pure idealism is. We do not get the ag- 
gregate oscillatory value of the pendulum 
from a study of the extremities of its arc . 
These are dead-points, and are barren of 

7 



98 IMMORTALITY. 

any but a negative value . They yield no 
living and dynamic truth. In a word, 
the abiding place of truth is always within 
the temperate precincts of the "golden 



mean." 



Pure materialism (which does not rec- 
ognize matter as mind,) is losing ground, 
just as pure idealism has long since done. 
The truth is, neither of them is adapted 
to sane, practical life. We cannot live 
either of them. So far as we here on earth 
are concerned, the test of any theory or 
philosophy, lies in its adaptability to the 
conduct of practical life. Dr. Maudsley, 
one of the most learned of materialists, 
says : " Not its origin, but the ivay it ivories 
on the whole, is the final test of a belief/ 5 
In the Outlook of January 10, 1903, ap- 
peared an editorial article on this subject, 
which is remarkable, and almost singular, 
for its convincing method of statement. 
Following, I quote all but its introductory 
paragraph : 



IMMORTALITY. 99 

"There are in philosophy two contrast- 
ed skeptical theories: one, that there is 
no matter, all is mind ; the other, that 
there is no mind, all is matter. It is not 
easy to refute either by pure reason ; but 
neither works well in actual life. How do 
we know that matter exists? We see it 
and touch it. But this only means that 
certain sensations take place in us which 
we attribute to external causes. How do 
we know T they are due to external causes? 
How do we know that we are not dream- 
ing, that matter is anything more than a 
phantasmagoria, a succession of mental 
images, a series of pure imaginings? How 
does the materialist know that there is an 
electric battery? How does he know that 
there is a brain? The answer is, we have 
to live as though matter exists. This is 
the practical answer, and it is all-suffi- 
cient. If I think I am cold, the coldness 
may be only a 'mortal thought,' but I 
shall continue to think cold, until I can 

LofC, 



100 IMMORTALITY. 

think coal ; and put it on what I think is a 
fire. The answer and the only answer, so 
far as we can see, to pure idealism, is that 
it does not work well ; whether matter ex- 
ists or not, we have to act as though it 
exists . 

Similarly, how do we know that mind 
exists? We reason, feel, resolve, but how 
do we know that reasoning, feeling, re- 
solving, are anything more than a phase 
of physical energy, a more subtle form of 
electricity, a material force generated by 
the brain? How do we know but that the 
statement of one of the older materialists 
is true, and that 'the brain secretes 
thought as the liver secretes bile?' The 
answer to this question is the same as the 
answer to the other. The theory of mate- 
rialism does not work well. We cannot 
apply it to the conduct of life. As we 
have to act as though there were matter, 
so also we have to act as though there 
were mind. Physical forces are not sub- 



IMMORTALITY. 101 

ject to moral judgments ; we do not con- 
demn gravitation as guilty of wrongdo- 
ing. Spiritual forces are subject to moral 
judgments ; we do condemn spiritual for- 
ces as guilty of wrongdoing. If a paper- 
weight falls off the desk and hits you on 
the knee, you do not think the paper- 
weight, or gravitation deserving of con- 
demnation ; if a man throws a stone and 
hits you on the knee, you do think the 
man worthy of condemnation. Society 
could not go on, except upon the assump- 
tion that man is a free moral agent ; that 
his acts are not the necessary sequence of 
purely physical conditions ; that he de- 
serves praise for some actions and blame 
for others. Except on this assumption, 
there could be neither government nor 
public opinion, neither good morals nor 
good manners. Civilization is based on 
the hypothesis that matter exists ; it could 
not go on upon any other hypothesis. So- 
ciety is based upon the hypothesis that 



102 IMMORTALITY. 

mind exists ; it could not go on upon any 
other hypothesis, So long as a man acts 
as if there were matter, and as though 
there were mind, Society does not care 
what theories he broods in his study. But 
when a man acts as though matter had no 
real existence, we call him crazy. If he 
attempts to put his theories into practice, 
he is liable to be sent to the insane asy- 
lum. If he acts as though mind did not 
exist, and ignores all moral responsibility 
for his action, we call him immoral, and 
he is liable to be sent to the penitentiary. 
Neither pure idealism, nor pure material- 
ism works. Life repudiates them both. 

"We do not think there is much use in 
arguing with either the idealistic skeptic, 
or the materialistic skeptic. We never 
knew of much progress made in such ar- 
guments. It is best to let him play with 
his pet doll before his study fire as much 
as he likes. It is certainly not a living 
child, and cannot go out by itself and en- 



IMMORTALITY. 103 

ter into the actual tussles of life. To the 
idealistic skeptic we should simply say, 
'Whether there is matter or not, you would 
better act as though matter is real or you 
will very soon come to grief/ To the ma- 
terialistic skeptic we should say, 'If it be 

true that the brain secretes thought as the 
liver does bile, you would better see to it 
that your brain secretes the right kind of 
thought if you wish to enjoy the esteem of 
your fellow-man. ' If what we call the 
life of the soul is inseparably bound up 
with the body, and ends w^hen the body 
ends, still let us make this life high, pure, 
true, noble. Religion is life, and to all 
philosophical skepticism, whether of the 
pure idealist or pure materialist, our reply 
would be, Let us live as though life were 
real, life were earnest. It is not by the 
theories we brood in our studies, that we 

are to be tested, but by the life we live in 
the world of men." 



104 IMMORTALITY . 

Surely no further argument is needed 
to make it clear to the reader of average 
intelligence that truth is always to he 
found in the mean, not in the extremes . 
The mighty significance of this fact can- 
not be overestimated. It furnishes a fixed 
and fundamental basis from which to rea- 
son safely and confidently. 

Now we will reason. To effectually lay 
the objections of querulous sticklers who 
might contend that the foregoing conclu- 
sion relative to truth and the mean, is not 
fully justified and final, I submit the fol- 
lowing : So far as we know, life is the pro- 
foundest fact in existence — it is the prime 
fact. "Without it there could be neither 
subjectivity nor objectivity. Life being 
the Supreme Fact, everything else in the 
universe is contributory, and subservient 
to it. Life then is right, if anything is 
right. In the philosophy of being, then, 
whatever is integrative of existence is right. 
This follows out of the constitution of 



IMMORTALITY. 105 

things, and beyond it there is nothing 
subject to human conception. It will be 
seen that in this connection, right and 
truth are synonymous terms. 

Because the last conclusions of pure 
materialism and pure idealism are morally 
disintegrative , they are not right ; in other 
words, they are not true. They do not con- 
serve life, which, we have seen, is the 
prime fact, and therefore, the primal truth. 
Pure idealism, no less than pure materi- 
alism, is a philosophy of despair. In the 
former, the summum bonum of life is the 
achievement of Nirvana, that is, the auto- 
evolution of a supraphysical estate that 
assures annihilation. Materialism, by a 
logic at least as plausible as that of the 
idealist, also fetches up against annihila- 
tion in the end. Extreme materialism 
teaches annihilation as a final fact ; ex- 
treme idealism teaches annihilation, or 
worse, as a final fact. 

If the foregoing arguments and state- 



106 IMMORTALITY. 

ments are correct , and the right (the 
truth) is never found in an extreme, but 
always in the mean, then annihilation is 
not a philosophic truth. The probable 
truth with reference to our destinies abides 
somewhere, and somehow in the mean. 
This is represented by the consensus of 
the conclusions of all thinking people ex- 
cepting the pure materialists and pure 
idealists. This vast aggregate conclusion, 
with all the countless absurdities and va- 
garies incident to it, embraces the doc- 
trine of immortality. It directly contra- 
dicts the vital part of the extreme conclu- 
sions ; and shall any one call it a chance 
coincidence? Shall any one deny that it 
is a philosophic necessity? To do this, he 
must first logically demonstrate that the 
theories of materialists and idealists work 
well in practical, every -day life, and also 
that these theories are morally integrative . 
It has been irrefutably shown that so far 
from working well in practical life, they 



IMMORTALITY. 107 

do not work at all, and that they are mor- 
ally disintegrative. Add to this philosoph- 
ic proof of immortality, the world's in- 
stinctive expectation of it ; the soul's inher- 
ent demand for it, and the stress of evo- 
lutionary consistency with reference to 
man's destiny, and the mighty question 
seems to be put almost without the bounds 
of discussion . 



PRO XII. 

ft) H E price principle is one of the fun- 
> damentals. To everything there is 
attached a price. This is a consequence 
of natural law, and this grows directly out 
of that reciprocity which is the underly- 
ing balancive principle of all that is. Na- 
ture is as strict and exacting in her busi- 
ness methods as Shylock ever was. She 
always delivers the goods, and you cannot 
escape payment for thorn. There is no 
royal road to bad, any more than there is 



108 IMMORTALITY. 

to good, eminence — Nature is fair. We 
must pay the price ; and this fact includes 
the facts of "free will" and " moral re- 
sponsibility . ' ' What is the price of our 
free will? It is the sacrifice of that infal- 
libility which pertains to the "automa- 
tism" of the lower animals. The price 
paid for ability to make mistakes and to sin, 
is lability to do these things. So far 
from this ability being in conflict with 
that fatalism I have spoken of, it is a re- 
sult of it. All that is was predestined, and 
that controlled function which we call "free 
will," is. Included in, and inseparable 
from, this ability to err, is that which we 
call "moral responsibility." If a particu- 
lar act were not performed, then it was 
not predestined ; wherefore the fact of pre- 
destination, though constant, unfailing, 
and specific, is contingent upon its verifi- 
cation. Playing forever within this con- 
tingency, is that illusive reality, "free 
will," with its consequent "moral respon- 



IMMORTALITY. 109 

sibility." Let it not be objected that a 
non-occurrence is as much predestined as 
is an occurrence, for this would be impos- 
sible. Impossible for the reason that only- 
nothing could lose itself in nothing. It is 
intrinsically impossible that what was not, 
might have been. 

u Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
The saddest are these: 'It might have been.' " 

Although the sweet pathos of these lines 
involves a metaphysical solecism, who 
could wish the precious couplet unwritten? 

To be more explicit in regard to God's 
sovereignty and man's free agency : The 
fact that ultimately, and unpractically, 
man is not responsible (to God) , conforms 
to God's sovereignty and insures man's fi- 
nal weal. The fact that proximately and 
practically man is responsible (to man) , 
conforms alike to God's sovereignty and 
man's "free will;" assuring, too, as it 
does, social possibility. God has ruled 
that (in a limited sense) man shall rule 



110 IMMORTALITY. 

himself, and the contingent phase of pre- 
destination puts him in partnership with 
God. This view, it seems to me, is rea- 
sonable. Certainly, such a truth would be 
at once worthy of God and honorable to 
man. 

The price of man's destiny, is God's 
sovereignty ; and despite that current ec- 
clesiasticism which makes man the author 
of his own destiny, that destiny is in 
agreement with God's sovereign will. God 
being infinitely good, man's ultimate des- 
tiny cannot be bad. Even if God, as gen- 
erally held, gave man absolute free agency 
(a thing which would be impossible with- 
out a contradiction of his sovereignty) 
he knew just what use man would make of 
it. To have put it within the power of 
his creatures to eternally damn them- 
selves, knowing that almost all of them 
would do it; to have done this, when it 
would have been just as easy not to have 
done it, would have been directly to damn 



IMMORTALITY. Ill 

them from the beginning ! I know that 
religious creed-defenders split hairs on 
this subject, seeking to establish that God's 
foreknowledge is not equivalent to his 
foreordination . To admit that there is no 
event (which includes the means to it) 
ivithout God ; to admit this (and to deny 
it, is to deny the fact of Godship), is to 
admit that if any of us are damned, God 
is responsible for it. To admit that God 
is omnipresent (and to deny this, is to 
deny God) , is to admit that he abides in 
hell amongst the damned, as much as any 
place else ! What must be the diabolic 
needs of man-made creeds, that they ne- 
cessitate such appalling blasphemies as 
these ! What must have been the natural 
severity, the mystic credulity, and the self- 
contempt of Calvin, who could believe in 
predestined damnation, and still love 
God ! The fact is , no human mind has 
ever been able to measure the monstrous 
savagery of the idea of eternal damnation. 



112 IMMORTALITY. 

Do just a little figuring for just a little 
bit, and you may catch a faint glimpse of 
its atrocity. Thus : To damn one soul a 
billion of years, is exactly equivalent to 
damning a billion souls for one year ; to 
damn one soul a decillion of years, is 
equivalent to damning a decillion of souls 
one year, and so on interminably. The 
horror of it is immeasurable, and incon- 
ceivable, for it amounts to the infinite 
damnation of an infinite number of souls ! 
Certainly then, it would be unimaginably 
more beneficent to annihilate us all, than 
to eternally damn one poor soul. Finally, 
as touching price : The price of existence 
without end, is existence without begin- 
ning ; and the price has been paid. 



IMMORTALITY. 113 



PRO XIII. 

IF THE conclusions of skeptical phi- 
losophy are true, then life has no mean- 
ing. It is very easy to show that life not 
only has meaning, but that it is all mean- 
ing. Living consists entirely in adjusting 
ourselves to the differences between mean- 
ings in detail . What would be the fate of 
a man to whom the meaning of prussic 
acid should be the same as that of water? 
This is only one illustration out of possi- 
ble millions. Life then, represents the 
sum of meanings ; and has it no signifi- 
cance beyond the mathematical feature of 
the case? The life principle, as we have 
seen, is as fundamental as is the law of 
gravity. It is more ; it is all that makes 
gravity possible ; for subjectivity takes 



114 IMMORTALITY. 

precedence of objectivity. Our life is a 
vital part of this mighty fundamental 
upon which the existence of the universe 
depends. Therefore life has meaning, un- 
less the universe is meaningless, and the 
assumption that it (the universe) exists in 
vain, especially when nothing can exist in 
vain, is a tolerably presumptuous one. 
The fact that life has meaning, as shown, 
disestablishes the ultimate conclusions of 
the skeptical philosophers. 

Whatever else it may be, life is a force. 
It is about certain that all the physical 
forces are interconvertible ; as so marked- 
ly illustrated in electricity. This is not 
true of life. If it were convertible into 
some other force, then some other force 
would be convertible into it. But life is 
inconvertible and changeless. Life is de- 
rivable from only life. Symond says: 
"An eternity of life behind us, warrants 
an expectation of eternity of life in the fu- 
ture." Life being inconvertible, none of 



IMMORTALITY. 115 

it is lost in related phenomena ; so that 
the quantity of it in the universe is in- 
creasing. It cannot increase unless the 
lives of individuals are perpetuated intact. 
Of course this would seem to establish the 
immortality of the lower animals and of 
vegetation; but do you object? If so, 
why? Would you be properly you, with- 
out a natural environment ; and are not 
all other things as much of, and as near 
to, God as you are? It is not impossible 
that the inherent stress of all that is be- 
low man, constitutes a question that is 
answered in perpetuated existence with 
expansive possibilities. 

PRO XIV. 

fH E very existence of all things de- 
pends upon the knowability of all 
things. What is not known to exist, can- 
not, and does not exist ; for otherwise ob- 
jectivity would be possible without sub- 



116 IMMORTALITY. 

jectivity. There is no occultism, except 
with reference to the finite mind ; there is 
no mystery not related to the human 
mind. This is because everything that 
exists is an intellectual expression, as seen 
hereinbefore. A tree is a manifested 
thought, just as a clock is ; unless an in- 
finite series can be broken by a finite one . 
It is easily thinkable that the being and 
quality of a thing was not self-originated 
— it is unthinkable that it was self-evolved, 
The essence of each thing is self-justifica- 
tion ; because each thing is an expressed 
necessity. The idea of necessity is insep- 
arable from that of fitness ; which is essen- 
tially an expression of reason first, and 
purpose second. There can be neither, 
unless there is a supreme intelligence. 

The fact of supreme intelligence neces- 
sarily includes a knowledge of that fact. 
There has never been a being on earth 
who experienced such knowledge. Does 
any such being exist in any mere world ? 



IMMORTALITY. 117 

Every system of whatever character, that 
we know anything of, has a head. In 
every aggregation of facts , there is a dom- 
inant one. It is even true that every thing 
has a head. Its central, or controlling 
fact is its head. It is impossible, there- 
fore, for us to separate the idea of head- 
ship from the universe. The outcome of 
analogies points to a capital of the uni- 
verse ; and we cannot disconnect the idea 
of this capital from that of a supreme ru- 
ler. The thought is a beautiful one ; and 
so far as human reason goes, it is logical- 
ly justified. If the human mind is a part 
of the supreme mind, then capitalism 
with reference to the universe must be 
true , despite the fact that we seem to know 
that infinity can have no center. After 
all, though, such particularism in relation 
to destiny, is without the bounds of prac- 
tical ratiocination — if it is reasonable that 
we shall exist after death, that is enough. 



118 IMMORTALITY 



PRO XV. 

Jft LL that is, may be considered an 
€BS& aggregation of questions and an- 
swers. To illustrate : stinging insects con- 
stitute a question to which the mammal's 
tail is the answer ; fidelity is the question, 
trust is the answer ; love is the question, 
love is the answer, etc. 

There is not, and cannot be, any an- 
swerless question. The question is made 
possible only by its answer ; i.e., the an- 
swer necessitates the question — question 
and answer are complementarity related to 
each other. To quote from myself: 

In the concourse of cosmic events, at the end, 

The question's the answer's reply ; 
And reflected from somewhere in natural trend 

Is want, thrown back from supply. 

The glorious peculiarity of these natu- 
ral questions is the fact that the answer is 



IMMORTALITY . 119 

necessarily affirmative. The question's 
possibility depends upon the answer's af- 
firmative certainty. So then, 

That question which springeth for aye from the soul, 

With its trembling hope, and its fear- 
Shall it meet its response? Shall its parts merge in 
whole ? 
Shall endless procession end here? 



T. 



PRO XVI. 

H E compensatory principle is an in- 
exorable constituent of cosmic move- 
ment. It runs in exact parallelism with 
question and answer ; so that the same set 
of arguments will do for both subjects. It 
will not be denied that, so far as we can 
see, compensation is inevitable. We must 
alw r ays pay, as we must always receive the 
price. No one can pay the price for us — 
not even Christ. Every sin committed 
must be expiated, else Nature contradicts 
herself; which as we have seen, is impos- 



120 IMMORTALITY. 

sible, unless it is possible for Nature to 
annihilate herself. The wretch who dies 
in the act of robbery or murder — how shall 
compensation reach him, unless he lives 
on? The hero who loses his own life in 
saving the life of another— how shall com- 
pensation reach him in this life? The 
compensative principle being as basic, 
and eternal as that of gravity, shall it be 
defeated? It may be objected that the fact 
of the murderer's depravity, is the fact of 
his compensation ; the fact of the hero's 
nobility, is the fact of his compensation. 
With reference to the criminal's native 
bent, moral scope, and ultimate conscious- 
ness , this is not a fact . It is a fact in the 
S abstract only, and its existence is merely 
relative, not positive. This is because the 
criminal cannot transcend himself. Again, 
compensation is not anticipatory of, but is 
sequential to, an act. It is a consequence 
of the act. It is dependent upon the act ; 
for if the act miscarries, any satisfaction 



IMMORTALITY. 121 

that was derived from its contemplation, 
is offset by disappointment. In the cases 
cited, as both individuals died in their 
acts, there was no opportunity for com- 
pensation. 

It might be further objected that the 
mind's capability of expanding a second 
into years — in extreme emergencies — 
would afford ample opportunity for com- 
pensation. But the mind's complete in- 
sulation always depends upon the sup- 
posed, or known imminence of death. The 
murderer might be shot in the head from 
behind ; and the same is true of the peace- 
maker who is attempting to save the life of 
another. In such cases, there would be 
no opportunity for mental insulation. 
There could be no ante-mortem compen- 
sation in such cases ; and, if death ends 
all, they would have to constitute excep- 
tions to Nature's rule! Nature's rules 
have no exceptions; so, therefore, post- 
mortem compensation must be inevitable . 



122 IMMORTALITY. 

It may be objected that the compensa- 
tory principle in nature has no moral re- 
lationships ; that it is all physical. Grav- 
ity will kill the saint as certainly as it 
will kill the sinner ; lightning will strike 
the church as readily as it will strike the 
saloon, etc. But it must be remembered 
that the interrelations of mind and mat- 
ter are such that moral effect attends eve- 
ry physical event. In a word, the supra- 
physical is as much an output of the cos- 
mos as is the physical. Being such, its 
procession is as unbreakable as is that of 
the physical. If you put your hand in 
the fire — purposely or accidentally — a 
physical sin has been committed — that is 
physics . If you die in the act of commit- 
ting murder, you have committed a moral 
sin, and it must be expiated. Nature's 
moral laws are as inflexible as her physi- 
cal laws. This sin cannot be expiated in 
time; it must, therefore, be paid for in 
eternity. There is no escape from this 



IMMORTALITY. 123 

conclusion, except under the assumption 
that Nature is capable of self-stultifica- 
tion ! The conscience is to moral acts , as 
the physical organism is to physical acts ; 
and its reactions (sooner or later) are as 
certain as are those of flesh and blood. 




PRO XVII. 

UMAN logic, pushed till it impinges 
on the unthinkable, recoils on itself, 
and is thus put out of associability with 
sanity. This is seen in impossible math- 
ematical problems, and other things. The 
ultimate inferable conclusions of skeptical 
philosophy are not to be trusted, because 
the unthinkable is made to be a positive 
factor in the reasoning of the case. The 
tangles into which the employment of un- 
thinkables in reasoning, will get us, may 
be illustrated thus : It is unthinkable that 
duration should have a limit ; therefore 



124 IMMORTALITY. 

we conclude it has no limit. But it is 
equally unthinkable that it has not a lim- 
it ; shall we conclude, therefore, that it has 
a limit? In fact, (because we are finite) 
we cannot think of duration without — in- 
stinctively, if not intellectually — giving it 
a limit. The same logic, because depend- 
ent upon the unthinkable, drives us to 
opposing conclusions. 

Such confusions result from attributing 
positivity to the unthinkable . In a more 
negative way, the unthinkable may be 
utilized in straight logic. For instance, 
it is unthinkable that the universe never 
had a beginning. It is equally unthink- 
able that it ever had a beginning. Ac- 
cording to that ultimate finite logic which 
takes the unthinkable into positive ac- 
count, neither hypothesis is tenable. But 
we do know, if we know anything, that 
one of them is true ; and we know that this 
truth is in harmony with an ultra logic 
which is inaccessible to human perspicaci- 



IMMORTALITY. 125 

ty. As I have said before, it is competent, 
in argument, to use the fact of the unthink- 
able, or of nothing ; but the attempt to use 
either in fact, is self-obliterative, because 
it attributes thingness to no-thingness. It 
is just to infer that the final conclusions 
of materialism — derived as they are from 
the reflexes of positively considered un- 
thinkables — are contradicted by the ultra 
logic of the cosmos. This would seem to 
constitute a worthy argument in favor of 
immortality. 

PRO XVIII. 

IF THE last conclusions of pure mate- 
rialism, or pure idealism, are true, 
then it can be made to seem mathemati- 
cally demonstrable that we do not, and 
never did exist. Their necessary assump- 
tion is that we had a beginning, and so, 
have an ending. According to their posi- 
tion, we — that is toe — were nothing before 



126 IMMORTALITY. 

we were something, and we will end in 
nothing. The situation is reducible to the 

formula: 1 . Now, l — — = — . 

We are, therefore, non est. This argument 
is not fair, because it involves the rela- 
tioning of nothing to something. But its 
logical intent holds a meaning that appeals 
affirmatively to our consciousness. The 
formula (a mathematical absurdity) mere- 
ly furnishes a graphic illustration of the 
impossible situation to which one phase 
of applied materialism leads. 



PRO XIX. 

fH I S has reference to the relation of 
science to religion. The old notion 
that there is a conflict between religion 
and science, has fallen back into a hungry 
oblivion. To say that religion and sci- 
ence disagree, is to say that each of them 
is opposed to itself ; for science is one with 
religion. Science seeks to explain and to 



IMMORTALITY. 127 

put into utility the various phases of cos- 
mic expression, and the latter is all that 
binds us to God. Science, in wading into 
the sea of mystery, at last "gets over its 
head/' and then it is purely religion. It 
always travels toward God, as it ever must. 

It is Science, and its congener, Philos- 
ophy, that has forced our profoundest 
thinkers to their knees in relation to the 
religious principle. Darwin's vast reach- 
es toward the ultimate drove him at last 
into that Eternal Verity we call God. The 
same is true of Herbert Spencer. Who 
does not remember Spencer's mighty con- 
clusion, logically expressed out of the Per- 
sistence of Force (Conservation of Ener- 
gy) ? Thus: 

i ' Hence the force of which we assert 
persistence, is that Absolute Force of 
which we are indefinitely conscious, as 
the necessary correlate of the force we 
know. By the persistence of force we re- 
ally mean the persistence of some Cause 



128 IMMORTALITY. 

which transcends our knowledge and con- 
ception . 

"Thus, quite unexpectedly, we come 
down once more to that ultimate truth, in 
w^hich, as we saw, Religion and Seience 
coalesce/ 7 etc. 

The fact of the Conservation of Energy 
is not inimical to the hope of immortality, 
because the individualism of the psychic 
entity (having always existed) is as in- 
trinsic to the constitution of things as the 
principle of conservation itself. It is half 
believed by a few modern philosophers 
that the "doctrine" of the Conservation 
of Energy is doomed to demolition ! The 
peculiarities of radium have done it. It 
is claimed that although it emits light and 
warmth continuously, it loses nothing; 
also that it is not possible that it feeds on 
the air or anything it contains. The idea 
strikes the average mind as tolerably ri- 
diculous. To the usual reasoner, it would 
seem about infinitely more probable that 



IMMORTALITY. 129 

no balance of sufficient delicacy can be 
devised for the case, than that radium si- 
multaneously does, and does not part with 
substance. It will take more than radium 
to disestablish the fact of conservation . 

The clashing of Geology with Genesis 
merely represents the difference between 
modern enlightenment and the ignorance 
and superstition of primitive times. Who, 
in this age , shall say Genesis is right, and 
Geology is wrong? Science may destroy 
all the religious creeds on earth, but it will 
only strengthen religion. Lord Kelvin 
says : " Every act of Free Will is a mira- 
cle to physical, and chemical and mathe- 
matical science." This is to belittle sci- 
ence ; for if science is not the word of God, 
(there being a God) , what is it? All the 
utterances of the Kosmos are inconceiva- 
bly religious, for they hold those deep, 
eternal meanings, which are religion. ,The 

statement is as much more than rhetoric, 
9 



130 IMMORTALITY. 

as Nature's earnestness is surer than any- 
thing else we know. 

Geology is one long sermon, whose text 
and affirmation is God, Design and Im- 
mortality. Is it probable that the carbon- 
iferous era, for instance, merely happened 
to antedate human possibility? We get 
such questions out of this sermon. As- 
tronomy preaches the same eternal ser- 
mon. What reverent mind cannot see 
through the magnitudes and majesties of 
Astraland the awful doubtlessness of en- 
theasm, and the very final in purposeful 
tremendousness? It is blasphemy to dis- 
count Science in religious relationships. 

In this connection I want to present a 
fact which rises above practical science ; it 
is too great and momentous to be scientif- 
ically classifiable. It has reference to sup- 
ply timeliness in relation to those needs 
upon which our existence depends. Why 
is it that flowers and fruits and vegetables 
do not all mature at the same time? Why 



IMMORTALITY. 131 

are they so rotated as to exactly fit our 
needs ? As to the fruits : first strawber- 
ries, then raspberries, then gooseberries 
and currants, then blackberries, then 
peaches, then melons, then plums, then 
apples, etc. Other minor fruits, such as 
hackberries, haws, May-apples, pawpaws, 
etc., are sprinkled through as a divertise- 
ment, and actually in subservience to the 
predatory spirit of boyhood . The vegeta- 
bles observe the same timeliness. First 
peas, then early potatoes, then green beans, 
then butter beans, then tomatoes, then 
sweet potatoes, then green corn, then cab- 
bage, etc. Lettuce, asparagus, squashes, 
egg-plant, celery, spinage, etc, are sprin- 
kled through the standards with perfect 
judiciousness. Note that these fruits and 
vegetables are precisely adapted to our 
warm-weather dietetic needs, and particu- 
larly note that those stronger, more heat- 
producing vegetables ripen late, and will 
keep over winter, and until the early gar- 



132 IMMORTALITY. 

den products will take their place ! Does 
this arrangement represent a feat of fortu- 
ity? To assert this, it seems to me, is to 
advertise oneself a lunatic. 

It may be objected that it is merely a 
question of adaptation ; that if it had hap- 
pened that all vegetables and fruits ma- 
tured at the same time, man would have 
necessarily been adapted to the condition, 
since vegetables , etc . , are a part of the en- 
vironment that produced him . If we ask 
the objector why this is true, the only an- 
swer possibly available to him would be — 
"because." 

In its application to this question, the 
fact of design answers it completely and 
satisfactorily. Design is as much a natural 
fact, and is in as constant evidence as is 
the fact of gravity. Each individual's vo- 
lition is dictated and controlled by design 
— a design originated by his environment, 
not by himself. Varying combinations of 
circumstances are the originators of our 



IMMORTALITY. 133 

designs, and these combinations are sub- 
ject to natural law. To originate a de- 
sign, one would have to exceed himself! 
Design pervades the universe, just as grav- 
ity does. We do not doubt the verdicts of 
gravity ; how then shall we doubt either 
the fact, or the verdicts of design, seeing 
especially that these verdicts confirm their 
mother fact, even as those of gravity con- 
firm their mother fact? 

There are a few questions which, so far 
as I can see, are unanswerable under any 
other hypothesis than that there is purpose 
back of all natural manifestation. Thus : 
Why do bees make enough honey to sup- 
ply both themselves and man? Why do 
hens lay enough eggs to fully perpetuate 
their kind, and amply supply man? Why 
do horses wholly sacrifice themselves for 
man's weal? These are questions that de- 
mand unprejudiced answers. 

Will it be objected that the enlarged 
functions, etc., of these animals are the 



134 IMMORTALITY. 

result of domestication, culture, etc.? The 
objection recoils upon itself as an objection, 
and becomes a confirmer of my conten- 
tion. It is true that the extraordinary- 
development of flowers, fruits, vegetables 
and animals is the result of culture. How 
is it done ? It is done by an intelligent ma- 
nipulation of environment. Man, having 
a mind, is capable of utilizing natural en- 
vironment as an instrument, or medium 
through which to accomplish desired re- 
sults. He is large enough to create a prox- 
imate, local environment, but he is not 
large enough to create a remoter and gen- 
eral environment. 

To illustrate this matter, we will sup- 
pose that an intelligent and curious Mar- 
tian drops into my study. He asks ques- 
tions which I try to answer. 

Ques. Where do bees, hens, cows and 
horses come from? 

Ans. They are the result of environal 
pressure . 



IMMORTALITY. 135 

Q. Why do they provide for themselves? 

A. Because of environal pressure. 

Q. Why do they anticipate future needs 
with present over-supplies? 

A. Environal pressure. 

Q. Why do they supply, not only their 
own needs, but also man's needs? 

A. Environal pressure. 

Q. Why does environment do all this? 

A. Because it cannot do otherwise. 

Q. Why cannot it do otherwise? 

A. All the prime, and large, supplies of 
man's needs just chance to have to happen 
to exist. All of his more proximate needs, 
such as honey, milk, eggs, completely de- 
veloped flowers, fruits, vegetables, ani- 
mals, etc., do not happen, but are compel- 
led by the force of purpose behind their en- 
vironment, which, in this case, represents 
merely a means to an end, 

Q. Your answer with reference to man's 
proximate supplies, is perfectly clear. It 
commends itself to my understanding as 



136 IMMORTALITY. 

being entirely sane and philosophic ; but 
why does not the same philosophy apply 
to man's first-hand needs, especially as 
Nature is coherent throughout, and the 
same ultimate method controls the uni- 
verse ? 

A. I giye it up. 

It is needless to say that the Martian 
would go away a much befuddled man. 

According to skeptic philosophy, there 
is no adaptation about it, for that would 
imply design . It is all the consequence of 
the stress of cosmic potentiality (a poten- 
tiality that exists without a reason) . Man 
is a common part of natural expression, 
and, as such, has to fit in with the rest. 

Now these statements resolve themselves 
into a generalized assumption, which de- 
pends for its existence upon the necessity 
of ruling out design. It classes that pre- 
cedent half of the universe which is all 
that makes the other half possible, with 
the mere elements that are common to 



IMMORTALITY. 137 

man and his environment. Otherwise, in 
spite of itself, it predicates intelligence of 
man's environment; since adaptation is 
fundamental to evolution. That is all 
that can be asked ; and that is the point 
at which philosophy always merges into 
religion. There is no process of reason- 
ing by which it can be made intelligible 
that the "inherent" (mindless) laws of na- 
ture are capable of prophecy and provi- 
dence. 

Man is a verified prophecy. This fact 
is written out in a climacteric series which 
has run through uncounted aeons. Did 
the prophecy originate in nescient poten- 
tiality? Is the idea of potentiality itself 
consistent with that of nescience as its es- 
sence? What made the very idea of po- 
tentiality, or prophecy, possible to man, 
if this same potentiality did not do it? 
Then shall the actual contradict the po- 
tential? The fact that man had to fit his 
environment stands unquestioned. If, 



138 IMMORTALITY. 

however, there is no reason why he had to 
fit it, then he did not have to fit it. The 
fact that he does have to fit it, proves, 
therefore, that there is a reason for it. If 
there is a reason for it, that is all we can 
ask ; for then the scheme was reasoned out, 
and this necessitates purpose, design, etc. 
If man is a part of nature, and nature i& 
congruous throughout, then the fact that 
man demands reasons, depends upon the 
fact that nature supplies reasons. The 
supply fact is all that makes the demand 
fact possible ; so that the demand fact is- 
subsequently related to the supply fact. 
From all of which I conclude that man is 
neither an accident, nor an incident, but 
is a verified prophecy. 

Here I want to call attention to a very 
remarkable book. I refer to the recently 
published work of Rev. Minot J. Savage, 
entitled "A Belief in God." It has not 
been blazoned to the world like " Trilby" 
and a few scores of later works, because it 



IMMORTALITY. 139 

merely seeks to establish the unimportant 
facts of God and immortality. It is solid 
logic all through, glorified by the graces 
of jeweled speech. The purpose of this 
masterly work is to establish theistic prob- 
ability on a scientific basis. It enjoys a 
lonesome eminence, in the fact that not 
one argument in the book is based upon 
an assumption. The man who knows 
there is such a book, but fails to purchase 
it, and read, and re-read it as he never 
read his bible, is treating himself shabbily 
indeed. 

The book ends with an address which 
had been delivered to a Greek letter soci- 
ety by Dr. W. H. Savage, a brother of 
Dr. Minot J. Savage. The title of this 
address is, "The Intellectual Basis of 
Faith ." I should say that this man's 
treatment of his subject has never been 
even nearly equaled by any other writer. 
The address, as a whole, besides being ab- 
solutely unique in logical method and 



140 IMMORTALITY. 

force , is a literary gem . It seems to me it 
has never been surpassed in clean-cutness, 
and in those nameless interverbal inci- 
dences which give virility and polish to a 
literary product. 

I wish I had room to quote at length 
from this address . As it is, I shall quote 
just a few of those passages which run in 
direct line with my contention, that Man 
is a verified prophecy. To forestall any 
attempted demolition of further argument 
(on the ground that we must not try to 
get without the scope of positive knowl- 
edge) , I quote the following : 

u How we shall make passage from 
man's nature and history to a knowledge 
of the spiritual powers that have been and 
are creating him, no one may be able now 
to say . But no man is authorized by any 
scientific fact or law to say that the pass- 
age cannot be made. To the objection con- 
tained in the statement that we cannot 
deal with what lies beyond our experience, 



IMMORTALITY. 141 

it is sufficient to say that all growth comes 
into contact with what was beyond the 
former experience." 

I quote further : 

" Now, I think there will be small dis- 
sent from the statement that man's reli- 
gious nature is as much a distinct fact as 
his eye or ear ; a fact, too, not to be con- 
founded with its accidents. The products 
of this nature are as real as any building 
or pyramid or mountain. The essential 
elements in the ideas of God, duty, truth, 
right, immortality, seem as much matters 
of course in the order of nature as the se- 
cretions of bodily organs or the deposi- 
tions of rock strata. 

" These things being so, they require to 
be accounted for. No scientific account of 
the world can be complete that does not 
account for these ' ideas/ and their influ- 
ence in history, fairly and adequately. 

1 ' Now it is simply scientifically incon- 
ceivable that man should have become 



142 IMMORTALITY. 

what he is, unless these results of history 
were either ordained in the germ — in 
which case, essential theism with its log- 
ical accompaniments is granted — or pro- 
duced by a spiritual environment, involv- 
ing as much as we mean by Theism/ ' 

One more passage : 

" Man is a result. He has been made, 
somehow, all of him. He cannot trans- 
cend his cause. The force that has shaped 
the highest in him may be harder to 
find than that which shapes his physical 
growth, yet none the less it must exist." 

This is it : Man's religious nature is as 
much a part of cosmic expression as is any 
material thing. Let it not be objected, as 
is the fashion, that this is equally true of 
man's anti-religious nature, as an out- 
come of which he commits all manner of 
sin. The counter would be an annihila- 
tor if it were only true. That man has an 
anti-religious nature, is flatly contradicted 
by his history. That he has a religious 



IMMORTALITY. 143 

nature, is past question. Now will some 
philosopher explain to me how man can 
have at once a religious, and an anti-reli- 
gious nature? It has been shown that the 
possibility of " badness " constitutes the 
possibility of "goodness. " The great fact 
of relativity accounts for all of this ; and 
whether a man is good or bad has no re- 
lation to the fact that he has a religious 
nature. Out of the Mystic Deeps, all other 
questions receive an affirmative response 
— does this natural question constitute an 
exception ? 



f 



PRO XX. 

H E following proposition has nearly 

the force of a con : 
There is not, and never has been, area- 
sonable religion in the world. An unrea- 
sonable religion requires an unreasonable 
God — an impossibility. Religion as a fact, 
therefore, has never been possible. Reli- 



144 IMMORTALITY. 

gion having always been false, it is not 
surprising that its past is written in blood 
and tears. 

Up to within recent times, every word 
of the foregoing statement was strictly 
true . That the vital part of it is not true 
now, I shall try to make manifest in what 
follows . 

It has been seen in pro viii that the prob- 
abilities are about ninety-nine for, to one 
against, the certainty of the ego's essen- 
tial distinctness from the brain. This con- 
clusion finds a natural correlate in those 
unquestioned psychic facts which merge 
into telepathy. The fact that these psy- 
chic truths do this, completes a logical cir- 
cle which puts the question of the mind's 
distinctness from the brain beyond con- 
troversy. Among the intelligent and 
thoughtful, the fact of telepathy is as 
firmly settled as is that of the earth's 
sphericity. Scores of instances of it have 
fallen within my own observation ; and 



IMMORTALITY. 145 

this is just as true of millions of others. 
Within three months my family and I 
have been witnesses to an instance of 
mind transference which, if it stood alone 
in history, would necessarily be conclusive 
evidence in the question. We have a 
neighbor — a highly cultured and refined 
lady ; wife of a minister— who is a psychic 
sensitive. I have seen many confirma- 
tions of this, but none of them has been 
so startling and pronounced as was the 
one I shall now present. One morning 
this lady awakened in a dreadful fright. 
She had dreamed that she was in bed with 
an infant, and that she had lain on it and 
smothered it to death . She was greatly 
agitated, and she trembled violently as 
she told her dream to her husband, who 
had been awakened by her scream . This 
happened at about five o'clock in the 
morning. On the next day, a man who 
lived two blocks away, called on the min- 
10 



146 IMMORTALITY. 

ister to secure his services at a funeral. 
He informed the clergyman that on the 
day before, at about five o'clock in the 
morning, his wife on awakening, discov- 
ered, to her horror, that she had lain on 
her infant in such a way as to smother it 
to death ! 

"Chance coincidence/ ' shall some one 
say? Shall he say this, remembering that 
the lady is a sensitive, who has had hun- 
dreds of experiences similar in character 
to this one ? Would not a plethoric series 
of such " chance " coincidences, running 
from childhood up to the age of thirty-sev- 
en, be much more marvelous than is the 
fact of telepathy itself, especially when 
there is no such thing as chance? 

The planchette owes its distinctive pe- 
culiarity, and therefore its existence, to 
the fact of mind transference alone. Shall 
any one deny that the planchette is a fact? 
This toy(?) — the despair of the scientists 
— embodies in its possibilities one of the 



IMMORTALITY. 147 

profoundest, and most momentous of oc- 
cult truths. It demonstrates the actual 
and material contagiousness of different 
mind tones. It proves that, under prop- 
erly sympathetic conditions the molecules 
of one mind come into contact with those 
of another mind, and that they are capa- 
ble of absorbing from each other differing 
thought atoms, or aggregations of them. 
The fullest explanation of the planchette 
principle given by any dictionary, is that 
its movements are "controlled by the dom- 
inant idea." No dictionary that I have 
consulted tells whether this dominant idea 
pertains to the sitters alone, or to them 
and others, etc. The fact is that the more 
people there are in the room, the better 
the little machine works. This is because 
the more people there are in a given space, 
the greater is the quantity of mentality in 
that space ; and consequently, the larger 
is the supply of that material to which the 
animal magnetism of the sitters makes the 



148 IMMORTALITY. 

instrument sensitive. The sitters are at 
once media for, and participants in, 
thought-projection. If the dictionary ex- 
planation of the planchette principle is 
rather scant, it at least recognizes the fact 
of mind transference. Telepathy is a fixed 
and eternal fact. 

The idea that the spirit world is separa- 
ted from this one only by a thin veil, ac- 
cords with right reason and with the 
steady trend of our profoundest instincts. 
There are two strong analogic reasons for 
this, namely: the facts that the greater 
forces and conditions are invisible, and 
are directly related to us. It is true that 
no force nor condition is materially visible 
to us ; but my meaning will hardly be mis- 
interpreted. Our habit of ultra- thought, 
which is directly sequential to the natural 
bent of things, is in alliance with the idea 
of the other world's nearness. We feel 
that the departing soul merely steps from 
the Here to the Beyond. It would be in 



IMMORTALITY. 149 

perfect consonance with the method of ev- 
olution, if the difference between the Here 
and the There should depend on vibratory 
rates, possibly including the practicalized 
fourth dimension. Such a hypothesis is 
thoroughly reasonable. 

There is, however, a still stronger proof 
of the nearness of the spirit world. This 
proof is derived from death-bed experien- 
ces. It is a matter of common knowledge 
that many, in the supreme moment of 
dissolution, act and talk as though the re- 
ciprocal stress of the awful event had rent 
the veil for them. They catch a rapturous 
glimpse of the sweetness and light of the 
" Echoless Shore/' with dear ones there 
in beckoning and greeting attitudes. I 
have seen many a dying face glorified by 
this transcendent vision — if merely vision 
it is. It is graciously notable that this ex- 
perience is not peculiar to professed reli- 
gionists. To the orthodox creedist, alas ! 
this fact would discredit the genuineness 



150 IMMOKTALITY. 

of the blessed vision ; but he must confess, 
after all, that God is infinitely good, and 
that his impartiality in the case would fall 
far within the limit of illimitable goodness . 

Now first, we have the fact of telepathy ; 
next, the fact of the spirit world's near- 
ness ; and next, the consistency and eter- 
nity of evolution. The juncture of these 
facts would seem to make it next to cer- 
tain, that intercourse between mortals and 
the immortals, is a present, or coming re- 
ality. Very many thousands of very sane, 
and very thoughtful people, including a 
number of great scholars and scientists, 
have been carried by these and more prac- 
tical proofs — as they claim — into the con- 
viction that the reality referred to, is a 
present one. 

Such a religion — being the straight out- 
put of evolution, and being in harmony 
with our noblest concept of deity — has the 
lonesome merit of reasonableness at least. 
The details of this faith, relating to one's 



IMMORTALITY. 151 

standing, method of life, enlarged oppor- 
tunities, etc., in the next world, are in 
strict correspondence with the first-hand 
facts derived directly from God's own book 
— that book which is not subject to High- 
er Criticism. None of them conditions 
God, nor shocks our sense of the right — 
they are reasonable. Only a reasonable re- 
ligion can reciprocate with a reasonable 
God. It follows that only a reasonable re- 
ligion can be the true religion. Let it be 
noted that no religion is reasonable, which 
requires a different quality of logic from 
that which governs us in our daily lives. 
The highest man's highest sense of the rea- 
sonable, is not too high for God; the best 
man's best scheme of human destiny, is not 
too good for God. Excepting the faith I 
have outlined, is there a reasonable reli- 
gion in the w r orld ? All other religions are 
"above reason/' and therefore above the 
source of reason ; for the potential of rea- 
son is necessarily exactly equaled by the 



152 IMMORTALITY. 

potential of its source . To talk about any- 
thing being above reason, is to talk the 
sheerest nonsense, of course. Faith — "in- 
tuitional" conviction — is included in the 
fact of intellect, and is a product of rea- 
son. Faith is the result of a convincing 
appeal ; and, whether worded or not, this 
appeal is made up of what is accepted as 
evidence . There could be no faith ; there 
could not be anything, if there were no 
such thing as reason. Reason is above 
all that is . 

The fact of this religion — it being the 
legitimate outcome of straight philosophy 
and strict morality, and embracing, as it 
does, the broad doctrine of God's father- 
hood and man's brotherhood — constitutes 
in itself, as it seems to me, an irresistible 
pro. I think no fair-minded independent 
thinker will deny that it brings into evi- 
dence one reasonable faith ; thus discredit- 
ing the con against which it is pitted. 

Note that this religious system is direct- 



IMMORTALITY . 153 

ly God-given. It is written out by God's 
own finger in a chain of mighty facts, 
which are a thousand times more nearly 
indisputable, than are those pertaining to 
any other religion in the world. To me, 
the conclusion seems inevitable, that if 
there is a true religious philosophy in this 
world, the one I have outlined must be 
that one. If it shall be voted heinously 
presumptuous for me to thus assume to 
specifically point out the right religion, I 
take refuge in the accommodating and 
commodious fact that all men do exactly 
the same thing. One thing is certain, and 
that is, that the world is rapidly drifting 
into that breadth and liberality of con- 
structive thought, out of which shall arise 
that beautiful temple of God, whose doors 
shall be wide enough for all humanity. 



154 IMMORTALITY. 



PRO XXI.* 

fH I S shall be the last of my pros, 
though there are a number of others 
which are worth considering. In fact, all 
the roads in synthetic philosophy lead to 
a pro in reference to immortality. With 
pro xxi, which I have ventured to believe 
is unique at least, I shall close this series ; 
my booklet having already become larger 
than I had intended it should. This pro 
will be peculiar on account of its logical 

* A very competent critic has suggested that as 
this pro practically nullifies all that precedes it, 
either it, or all the rest should be left out. My pur- 
pose has been to establish the fact of immortality. 
To a class, what precedes pro xxi will be sufficient ; 
to another class, nothing less than this pro will suf- 
fice ; while alas ! to another class, not even it will 
be convincing. To those who require pro xxi, all 
the rest of the argument will be waste matter; to 
those who do not require it, it will be a mere curio. 
I have written for all. 



IMMORTALITY. 155 

isolation, and its independence in rela- 
tion to the usual trains of philosophic 
thought. I have never happened to see a 
hint of it in any of my readings. Cer- 
tainly its employment has not been com- 
mon. 

The force of this pro will depend upon 
the exhaustibility of variety. The nature 
of the argument based upon this is such 
that if all the foregoing arguments are 
false, and even if it be a fact that there is 
no God, still immortality is absolutely as- 
sured. All that is required is the estab- 
lishment of the fact that variety is ex- 
haustible. It seems certain that the base 
of variety is always limited. If this is so, 
its expression cannot be infinite. Thus, 
the basis of musical variability consists of 
seven tones and four half tones, eleven 
tones in all. Though the possible rela- 
tions derivable from these run into bil- 
lions, they cannot be infinite, for their 
source is finite. Young as humanity is — 



156 IMMORTALITY. 

so far as we know — no composer can pro- 
duce a wholly original tune. So far from 
that, he cannot more than two-thirds, or 
one-half, do so. This is true of all other 
bases of variety. The socio-moral ele- 
ments of fiction seem to be three-fourths 
exhausted. Who shall write a half origi- 
nal novel ? There is an ocean of differ- 
ence between the exhaustion of the new- 
ness of a simple element, and the exhaus- 
tion of the individuality of a complex unit . 
The newness of the word, "the" was prac- 
tically exhausted with its first use ; it has 
no individuality, for all the's are the 
same. You, dear reader, are an individ- 
ual, and your individuality has never 
been duplicated. 

Touching the exhaustibility of variety, 
if it is a fact that it is even a little more 
difficult for the composer, the novelist, or 
the poet to do original work than it was 
three thousand years ago, that establishes 
the exhaustibility of variety. We have 



IMMORTALITY. 157 

seen that it is much more than a little 
more difficult. It seems true then, that 
variety is being exhausted ; and if this is 
true, various possibility is not infinite . I 
submit that the practical fact that variety 
is being exhausted (which could not be 
true if variability were infinite) , demol- 
ishes the mere theory that matter is infi- 
nitely divisible. Even that theory is not 
fatal to the exhaustibility of individuality, 
for differences too fine to be cognizable to 
the human intellect, would, so far as we 
are concerned, have no existence. There 
is no thing whose margin is not infinitely 
related, but that fact only proclaims our 
divine origin. The idea of difficulty — 
much more of increasing difficulty — in ef- 
fecting new combinations, is not compati- 
ble with that of infinite resource . This is 
practical — not theoretical. 

Every individual is the product of a va- 
ried draft upon original resource. A time 
must come when the source (not being 



158 IMMORTALITY. 

infinite) will be exhausted. What then? 
The boundless, eternal billow of poten- 
tiality goes on forever . It is everlastingly 
the same. Exactly what it has produced, 
it must produce again. You, dear reader, 
are an individual. You will be reproduced 
some time. What if you do not come into 
existence again for ten billions of years? 
That period will be no more to you than 
would be ten seconds . You go to sleep in 
death, and — so far as you are conscious — 
immediately awaken into new being. It 
maybe objected that we could not be ex- 
actly reproduced, unless every minute de- 
tail of our environment were synchronous- 
ly brought into being. The invisible de- 
tail of our environment can have no effect 
upon our personality. On account of the 
differing terms of exhaustibility, it is about 
certain that in detail many features of our 
environment are constantly changing, but 
this does not disturb the mass effect. It 
is the mass effect that contributes toward 



IMMORTALITY. 159 

our individualism. To us, grass is grass, 
whether any of its blades have been du- 
plicated or not . The same is true of trees 
and all other natural objects. This ter- 
racing scheme — the result of exhaustive 
variability — even if it affects the mass, is 
in strict consonance with natural conser- 
vation, and so, with evolution. You will 
continue to progress, for you will reap all 
the benefits of this life's mistakes. But 
whether our mental acumen, and our in- 
genuity are equal to all the subtleties in 
the case or not, can make no difference — 
if it is a fact that our individualities will 
be reproduced, and even a fact that our 
environal relations will be quite changed, 
these facts will somehow harmonize. Na- 
ture will see to that. 

The most rational objection to the the- 
ory would inhere in the question : Why 
have we not been reproduced in the past? 
The time has been long enough, for it has 
been infinitely long. 



160 IMMORTALITY. 

Now, in the practical sense, has it been 
infinitely long? The difference between 
time and space consists in this : Space is 
absolutely infinite — it has neither begin- 
ning nor end. Time always has one end, 
the proximal end ; i.e., the present. Du- 
ration always is, and always will be, 
making for infinity (just as we are doing) 
but it will never attain it. Futurity, 
though absolutely assured, does not exist, 
and has never been an accomplished fact. 
The peculiarity of time is that it is eter- 
nally self-creating — it is at once limited 
and unlimited. In this peculiarity abides 
that logos which adapts duration to evo- 
lution. Time is the sufficient and eternal 
type of onwardness. If time were infinite 
in the same sense as that in which space 
is infinite, then evolution would have been 
impossible. Time is progressiveness , and 
progressiveness is evolution ; so that evo- 
lution is coincident with that trinity of all 
trinities — Past, Present and Future. This 



IMMORTALITY. 161 

being the nature of evolution (progressive- 
ness coincidently with that of time) , alter- 
nate cycles of involution do not express 
retrogressive interruptions. If time has 
always been, evolution has always been, 
and, with time, always will be. If we, in 
parallelism with evolution, have existed 
potentially always, can anyone give a sane 
reason why we should have merged into 
self-consciousness before now, especially 
as all of the past (if "all " will apply) is 
not even a fraction of forever? So far as 
eternity is concerned, our mergence into 
self-consciousness might have been post- 
poned decillions of years yet without mak- 
ing a particle of difference. In fact, no 
objection is pertinently considerable, if 
the exhaustibility of variety can be estab- 
lished ; for that covers all objections, and 
everlastingly settles the whole question. 
It is proper to say here, that the souPs re- 
quirement of immortality — having its cor- 
11 



162 IMMORTALITY. 

relate in the fact of immortality — could 
suffer no disturbance as a consequence of 
the method of immortality. Note particu- 
larly that, evolution being an eternal fact, 
reversion of our individualities to incho- 
ate or primitive estates will be impossible. 
It is the last conclusion of higher philoso- 
phy, that the process of the greater Kos- 
mos consists in an eternal succession of 
evolutions and involutions. What is evo- 
lution, but an exhaustion of variety ; and 
what is involution, but a potentialization 
of this variety? The universe is complete- 
ly involved in this mighty fact. From all 
the suns and worlds down to the minutest 
detail, this fact is manifest. It is all, ac- 
cording to Spencer, an endless series of 
integrations and disintegrations ; but he 
gives no reason for it. The reason inheres 
in that repetition which is necessitated by 
the exhaustion of variety. Because reason 
is, there is a reason for everything that is. 



IMMORTALITY. 163 

This pro is seriously submitted, for serious 
consideration. 



ULTRA PRO. 

IT H A S been seen that the aggregate 
trend of things is affirmative of im- 
mortality. The things are included in the 
ultimate verdicts of science, the common 
social experiences of mankind, and the 
philosophy of history. According with 
natural consistency, the total sum of ex- 
pressions converges into coalescence with 
our seventh sense. (The sixth sense is that 
muscular quality through which we ap- 
prehend the fact of gravity.) The seventh 
sense is that physico-spiritual endowment 
through which we feel the necessity and 
certainty of continued existence. This 
sense constitutes the supreme touch of 
man's personal equipment. It is the con- 
necting link between temporal and eter- 
nal life. 



164 IMMORTALITY. 

The fact of this sense is beyond rational 
doubt. It has been affirmed and confirm- 
ed through all the ages ; not as a sense, but 
as a psychic function. Scientists, ever 
timid and hesitating in classifying facts 
which are not obtrusively self-pronounced, 
have left this to the care of professional 
religionists. It is, and always has been, 
recognized as a psychological (and there- 
fore scientific) fact, but has not been 
named a sense. 

The senses are first facts — First True 
Facts. They differ from the "First Truths" 
of intellectual philosophy, in being wholly 
original, fundamental and life-serving. 
They are properties of intelligent being, 
whereas the First Truths are fundamental 
convictions. Conscience and intuition are 
at least partly acquired — belief is almost 
wholly acquired. These statements ex- 
hibit the relative importance of our native 
endowments, special or not. It is seen 
that the special senses are genetically re- 



IMMORTALITY. 165 

lated to animal existence. They precede 
the possibility of self-conscious being. 

The difference between the special senses 
and the other special endowments, may be 
clearly defined. The special senses are 
immediate, direct, indispensable, directly 
life-serving, constant and common to the 
race. The others are not. The special 
senses co-ordinate perfectly ; being sever- 
ally and collectively homogeneous to the 
physical and mental organisms. Other 
special [endowments do not co-ordinate 
perfectly, and therefore they make for in- 
harmony. An exaggerated talent is such 
at the expense of the other talents. Ge- 
nius is a talent exaggerated to a phenom- 
enal degree ; and he who is a genius, is al- 
ways lop-sided. 

We have, then, two classes of special en- 
dowments. One is constant, common, life- 
serving, etc. ; the other is not, and is ex- 
ceptional. There are only these two class- 
es of special endowments ; and what does 



166 IMMORTALITY. 

not fall within one of these classes, neces- 
sarily falls within the other. The demand 
for, and expectation of, continued exist- 
ence, is in harmony with the other senses, 
is constant, and is common to mankind. 
Thus it is as clearly a sense as is any one 
of the other six senses. It classifies itself 
with the special senses. 

Now the possibility of a sense depends 
upon the certainty of its justification. We 
could not see, if there were nothing to be 
seen; nor hear, if there were nothing to 
be heard. This fact is necessary to the 
very nature and constitution of sensibili- 
ty. Apply this absolute fact to that other 
absolute fact — the seventh sense — and the 
certainty of immortality is seen to be one 
of the First True Facts. 

The seventh sense is a necessary ex- 
pression of evolution. The office of evo- 
lution may be defined to be the fitting of 
oncoming facts to their pre-existing com- 
plements. We call this process of adapta- 



IMMORTALITY. 167 

tion, evolution. The fact of immortality 
has always existed ; and this fact demanded 
the seventh sense, just as the fact that 
objects reflect light, demanded vision. 

Note the ascending scale of refinements 
as exhibited in the special senses. Closest 
to the grossness of earth-life, is the gusta- 
tory sense — specially life-serving. Next, 
touch ; next, gravity ; next, audition ; next, 
olfaction; next, vision; and last, ultra- 
vision. The whole conforms to the swell- 
ing scheme of things, addressing itself 
gratefully and authoritatively to our most 
enlightened conception of fitness. In it is 
represented a climacteric series, the far- 
ther half of whose final term burns in the 
Beyond. This seventh sense is all that 
makes possible such bursts of supernal 
passion and prophecy as the following 
from the glowing pen of that incompara- 
ble prose-poet, Dr. Ralcy Husted Bell — 
who is profoundly innocent of regulation 
religion : 



168 IMMORTALITY. 

" He is an old man now. Grief and 
Time and the World have exacted their 
toll. His frail flesh they have not spared ; 
and on his dear face they have left their 
autographs and return notices. And sealed 
up within the heart of Fate lies the final 
summons dated and signed by the Master. 

" These are the things then, that dis- 
turb mortals. If these things were all, 
Love's heart would burst. But in the pres- 
ence of a reverent philosophy love borrows 
hope from the light of stars and a merri- 
ment from the joy of day. There is with- 
in the season's change some subtleness 
that wakes responses from the far-away. 
Adown the farthest tracks of light it comes, 
and up from the pulsing deeps . 

"Thus hope suspires from the earth and 
rains from the sky. From the petals of a 
shattered rose and from a smile on the lips 
of the dead, dream-shadows rise endowed 
with life. There is within the common 
fate of all a promise and a prophecy that 
all shall be well for all that is, and that 
each shall have at last its very own." 



IMMORTALITY. 169 



APPENDIX, 



THE CLERGY. 

IN CLOSING, I should like to make an 
appeal to the ministry. It is their pe- 
culiar function to conserve good morals 
and social order. I should think they 
would want to impress into service every 
means that makes for righteousness. It 
seems to me that it should be evident to 
them by now, that a very large field out- 
side of conventional pulpitism is beckon- 
ing them. The defection of men with ref- 
erence to the church, I should think, 
should hold a profound but readily expli- 
cable significance to them. 

Fifty years ago there were, within a ra- 



170 IMMORTALITY . 

dius of three miles from where I now sit, 
six churches, and all these were actively 
alive and amply supported. Only one is 
left, and it is moribund. The population 
is six times greater now than it was fifty 
years ago. The congregation of this lone 
church is now mostly made up of women 
and children, there being only one man 
to every five or six women. This repre- 
sents a decadence (which is not the right 
word) of six or eight hundred per cent., 
at least. There is a reason for this, and 
it is not because men have deteriorated in 
the religious sense, for the moral tone of 
this community is very much better than 
it was in that elder day. What is true of 
this community is, to a greater or less de- 
gree, true of the whole country. 

This is a very solemn fact as concerning 
church organization. What shall the cler- 
gy do about it? Shall they realize that in 
this enlightened age men reason and think 
along religious lines ; that they do not 



IMMORTALITY. 171 

now put in abeyance that logic (all the 
logic we have) which they mast apply to 
the affairs of this life? Shall they still 
stick to crazy creeds and the gross mate- 
rialism of ancient orthodoxy? Shall they 
still try to adapt a mediaeval mode of reli- 
gious thought to this age ; still try to fit a 
square peg into a round hole? Do they 
feel that civilization is so far ahead of the 
pulpit that it is useless for the pulpit to 
try to catch up? Don't they know that 
the religious instinct is just as strong in 
men as it ever was, and that the souls of 
men are crying out for a church-home in 
which they could feed upon the whole- 
some, the sweet and the beautiful of reli- 
gious thought? Don't they know that if 
they would adopt the practice of deliver- 
ing, or of having delivered, on alternate 
Sabbaths , extra-scriptural religio-philo- 
sophic discourses, they would soon fill 
their auditoriums with serious, thoughtful 
men? And don't they know that in time 



172 IMMORTALITY. 

the liberal element, by brain dominance 
and numerical superiority, would absorb 
the back-age remnant? 

The time is not quite ripe yet for this 
reform to be wrought through an inde- 
pendent movement. The prestige of 
church institutionalism, with the conse- 
quent technical authoritativeness of the 
ordained prelate, would be necessary to 
the defiance of that fixed conservatism 
along this line, which more or less con- 
trols us all. It is up to the preachers. 
They must widen our church doors. It is 
certain that church disintegration will 
continue till religion is liberalized into 
harmony w T ith the enlightenment of this 
luminous age. 



OEC 9 1904 



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