If materialism is an impossible philosophy, then the popular belief that
the soul is created at birth is also impossible. It is a theory that
encumbers its belief in immortality with conditions that destroy justice
and defy logic. That old form of belief has outlived its day. It was
possible at any time only because there was too little information and,
like the old belief that the world was flat, it must yield place to the
newer knowledge. The truth of evolution is the stanchest friend of
religion. It is the foundation on which may be built a scientific belief
in a Supreme Being, a rational faith in immortality and a brotherhood of
man that has a basis in nature itself. The very idea that was hastily
thought to be destructive of a belief in God and heaven and immortality
is rapidly becoming the most important witness to the truth of them all.
While it is true that in the earliest days of evolution the most eminent
scientists were agnostic, it is equally true that today the most eminent
scientists of the world believe in the existence of the soul, and in its
immortality, and base that belief upon scientific grounds.
What is the essence of the facts of evolution and how does it give
evidence against materialism and for immortality? Evolution is an
orderly unfolding from the single to the diversified, from the simple to
the complex, in which process life evolves by passing from lower to
higher forms and storing within itself the gist of the experiences
gained in each.
One of the vital facts that evolution establishes is that slow building
is the order of creation. The horse is an example. He is traced backward
with certainty to a small creature that resembles him very little
indeed. Ages were required to evolve the horse into his present
intelligence and utility. Another profoundly important fact in evolution
is the continuity of life from body to body. The butterfly is frequently
used as an illustration, but the principle holds with all the higher
order of insects like ants, flies and bees. In the metamorphosis of the
caterpillar we have a phenomenon so common that most people have
personally observed it. Watch, in imagination, its transformation that
contradicts materialistic philosophy. The worm is a physical body
occupied by an evolving life or intelligence. Its physical body perishes
and becomes part of the dust of the street. The life enters the grave of
the chrysalis. The scientist takes that chrysalis, packs it in an ice
house and leaves it frozen for a number of years. Now a mere frost will
kill either caterpillar or butterfly, but when the chrysalis is removed
from the ice and brought into a higher temperature the triumphant life
emerges in the form of the butterfly. This phenomenon proves that life
does survive the loss of the body. The body of the caterpillar is dead
and has turned to dust years ago, but the caterpillar that lived in it
is not dead. It now lives again in the physical world in a physical
body of a higher type.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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