certain combination of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. I contend that the word “soul,” in relation to human, vital, and mental phenomena, occupies an analagous position to that which used to be occupied by such words as “demon,” “genii,” “gnome,” “fairy,” “gods,” in relation to general physical phenomena. The ability to think is never found except as an ability of animal organisation, and the ability is always found higher or lower as the organisation is higher or lower: the exercise of this ability varies in childhood, youth, prime, and old age, and is promoted or hindered by climate, food, and mode of life; yet the orthodox maintainers of soul require us to believe that the ability to think might be found without animal organisation, and might, nay will, exist independent of all vital conditions. They contend that what they call the soul will live when the human being has ceased to live; but they do not explain whether it did live before the human being began to live. The orthodox contend that as what they call the elementary substances, taken separately, do not think, therefore man without a soul cannot think, and that as man does think he must have a soul. This argument, if valid at all, goes much too far; a trout thinks, a carp thinks, a rat thinks, a dog thinks, a horse thinks, and, by parity of reasoning, all these animals should have immortal souls. It is sometimes urged that to deny the immortality of the soul is to reduce man to the level of the beast, but it is forgotten that mankind are not quite on a level. Take the savage, with lower jaw projecting far in advance, and compare him with Dante, Shakspere, Milton, or Voltaire. Take the Papuan and Plato; the Esquimaux and Confucius; and then ask whether it is possible to contend that all human beings have equal souls? The orthodox man declares that my soul is spirit, that my body is matter; that my soul has nothing in common with my body; that it exists entirely independently of my body; that my soul lives after my body has ceased to live; that, after my body has decayed, is disintegrated, and become absorbed in and commingled with the elements, my soul still continues uncorrupted and unaffected. But not a shadow of proof or even of reasonable explanation is offered in support of any clause in this declaration. The word “spirit” is left utterly undefined. No sort of explanation is given of the nexus between the two alleged distinct existences, “body” and “soul.” Not a trace is suggested of “soul,” otherwise than through what are admittedly material conditions.