Frontier and pioneer life -- Oregon; Frontier and pioneer life -- Washington (State)
But it is said that soul-qualities are the active manifestations of gray
matter in the human brain. We have already seen that the power to think,
to reflect, and to judge of the moral quality of thoughts and acts, is
not a property of matter. None of it, by itself or in combination,
possesses this power. Wonderful have been the combinations and
resultants of the operations of chemists, but life even in its simplest
form is beyond their power. How much further beyond their power must be
the production of the soul-power mentioned above! Besides, this gray
matter has been analyzed and its constituent elements ascertained; none
of these elements in its simplest form show any trace of this power. How
is it possible, then, by combination to produce that of which no trace
even existed in the elements? Then too, if this power is resultant, it
is a law of chemistry that all resultants may be reduced back to its
constituent elements. It would indeed be a wonderful achievement to
reduce the power to think as a resultant, back to its constituent gases.
Again, take the case of a strong and healthy man suddenly killed by a
bullet penetrating both ventricles of the heart; this gray matter exists
intact in the brain immediately after the extinction of life. Decay does
not immediately affect its power. Does the man think, reflect and judge
of the moral qualities of thoughts and acts after the extinction of
life? If so, then this soul-power exists after death, and the argument
answers itself.
This argument has proceeded far enough to show its line of thought.
Much might be added by way of illustration, details and further
supporting propositions, but it is not deemed necessary.
I conclude, then, that the soul is not only a unit with the power
ascribed to it, but that it is also an invisible, immaterial and eternal
entity or being. This is but the enumeration of the attributes of a
spirit or spirit-existence. I will not attempt to repeat the reasons
found in every text-book of mental philosophy and moral science to show
its unity. We have seen that it is not matter; yea, more, that it is not
a property of matter; therefore that it is immaterial. If immaterial and
possessing the power to think and reflect, and endowed with moral
sensations and perceptions--the highest and best evidences of life--it
is a spirit-existence. As such, what evidence have we that a
spirit-existence was ever destroyed? That it exists in manifest.
Existing with no evidence of its destruction or of its destructibility,
we ought to believe in its immortality; hence, I conclude, if a man die,
he will live again.
I have had a controversy on religious subjects but once in my life. I
have always desired to avoid such controversies. Fixed religious
opinions in the minds of others, especially of the old, I regard as
sacred. To create a doubt, is to loosen them from their moral and
religious moorings and to set them hopelessly adrift.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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