Meanwhile, the very fact that we lament so sincerely this dire and man-caused fate serves to illustrate the view we inevitably take that the earth-body is not only a means of manifestation but is a real servant of the soul,--that flesh can in some sense help spirit as spirit can undoubtedly help flesh,--and that while its very weaknesses are serviceable and stimulating, its strength is exhilarating and superb. The faculties and powers developed in the animal kingdom during all the millions of years of evolution, and now inherited for better for worse by man, are not to be despised. Those therefore who are able to think that some of the essential elements or attributes of the body are carried forward into a higher life--quite irrespective of the manifestly discarded material particles which never were important to the body, for they were always in perpetual flux as individual molecules--those, I say, who think that the value derived and acquired through the body survives, and becomes a permanent possession of the soul, may well feel that they can employ the mediæval phrase "resurrection of the body" to express their perception. They may feel that it is a truth which needs emphasising all the more from its lack of obviousness. These old phrases, consecrated by long usage, and familiar to all the saints, though their early and superficial meaning is evidently superseded, may be found to have an inner and spiritual significance which when once grasped should be kept in memory, and brought before attention, and sustained against challenge: in no case should they be lightly or hastily discarded. It seems not altogether fanciful to trace some similarity or analogy, between the ideas about inheritance usually associated with the name of Weismann, and the inheritance or conveyance of bodily attributes, or of powers acquired through the body, into the future life of the soul. When considering whether anything, or what, is likely to be permanent, the answer turns upon whether or not the soul has been affected. Mere bodily accidents of course are temporary; loss of an arm or an eye is no more carried on as a permanent disfigurement than it is transmissible to offspring. But, apart from accidents which may happen to the body, there are some evil things--rendered accessible by and definitely associated with the body--which assault and hurt the soul. And the effect of these is transmissible, and may become permanent. Habits which write their mark on the countenance--whether the writing be good or bad--are not likely to take effect on the body alone. And in this sense also future existence may be either glorified or stained, for a time, by persistence of bodily traits,--by this kind of "resurrection of the body."