Raymond; or, Life and Death: With examples of the evidence for survival of memory and affection after death.Lodge, Oliver, Sir
Religion
Raymond; or, Life and Death: With examples of the evidence for survival of memory and affection after death.
Lodge, Oliver, Sir
Future life; Lodge, Raymond, 1889-1915 (Spirit); Spiritualism; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, British
"Must we then suppose, with Russel Wallace, that
somewhere on the upward path from the tropical forests
to the groves of Paradise, a soul was interpolated from
an outside source into the gorilla-like ancestry of man?
I do not think so, although I not only admit but assert
that such a view gives a more accurate statement of fact
than does either of the fashionable doctrines that I
have discussed. I believe with Darwin, that as the body
of man has been evolved from the body of animals, so the
intellectual, emotional, and moral faculties of man have
been evolved from the qualities of animals. I help myself
towards the comprehension of the process by reflecting on
two phenomena of observation [which he proceeds to cite].
I help myself, and perchance may help others; no more;
could I speak dogmatically on what is the central mystery
of all science and all philosophy and all thought, my
words would roll with the thunder of Sinai."
Let it not be supposed for a moment that this distinguished biologist
is in agreement with me on many matters dealt with in the present book.
If he were, he would, I believe, achieve a more admirable and eloquent
work than is consistent with the technically 'apologetic' tone which,
in the present state of the scientific atmosphere, it behoves me to
take. To guard against unwelcome misrepresentation of his views, and
yet at the same time to indicate their force, I will make one more
quotation:--
"Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a
lover of the scalpel and microscope, and of patient,
empirical observation, as one who dislikes all forms
of supernaturalism, and who does not shrink from the
implications even of the phrase that thought is a
secretion of the brain as bile is a secretion of the
liver, I assert as a biological fact that the moral
law is as real and as external to man as the starry
vault. It has no secure seat in any single man or in any
single nation. It is the work of the blood and tears
of long generations of men. It is not, in man, inborn
or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his
customs, in his literature and his religion. Its creation
and sustenance are the crowning glory of man, and his
consciousness of it puts him in a high place above the
animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and fall,
but the struggle of individual lives and of individual
nations must be measured not by their immediate needs,
but as they tend to the debasement or perfection of man's
great achievement."
My own view, which in such matters I only put forth with diffidence
and brevity, is more in favour of Continuity. I do not trace so
catastrophic a break between man and animals, nor between animal and
vegetable, perhaps not even between organised and unorganised forms of
matter, as does Dr. Chalmers Mitchell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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