ONE ARGUMENT FOR THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL CONSIDERED by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 29, 1869

ONE ARGUMENT FOR THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL CONSIDERED.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

ONE of the main arguments which is relied upon to prove that the soul is immortal, is the asserted universal belief of all nations, in all ages, in this doctrine. Those who have written in defense of the immortality of the soul, assert that this doctrine has been universally believed. Hence, they argue that it must be true, or else why so generally believed? So argues Dr. Dick, Dr. Clark, Luther Lee, and others. Now suppose what they say were true, how much would it prove for the immortality of the soul? Have not other doctrines, which we know to be false, been almost, if not quite, universally believed? Idolatry, with the exception of a small class, has been practiced by all nations. Does this prove that to be the true religion? This rule of proving a thing by the majority, or even by the mass, of the human race would prove idolatry, and many other errors, to be truths. On this ground, the minority, “the little flock,” must always be in the wrong!

But I will take another false doctrine and show that it has been as widely believed as it is claimed that the immortality of the soul has been. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls is manifestly a false doctrine; yet a large majority of the human race has always believed it. It teaches that the soul lived before it came into this world, and that, when this body dies, the soul will pass into another body, and then into another, till it is finally re-absorbed into God from whom it came.

We all readily agree that this is an error; yet it has obtained a general belief among mankind. Of this fact there is an abundance of proof, though my limits will allow me to offer but little. Says the New American Cyclopedia, Art. Metempsychosis: “This idea [of the transmigration of souls] belongs to the oldest religion of India and Egypt, and is one of the earliest forms in which the doctrine of immortality appears. . . . It is a prominent feature in the system of Brahmanism and Buddhism. . . . The idea appears in the tenets of the Gnostics and the Manicheans, and of some other heretical sects. It was also a part of the doctrine of the Druids, and is still believed by the Druzes and various other tribes in western Asia and Africa.” Says Dr. Horne: “The Tartars and American Indians believe in the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of beasts.” Of the Chinese he says: “The absurd notion of the transmigration of souls is universal.”

The above-named nations alone constitute a majority of the human race. They have held, and still hold, this absurd doctrine. Adam Clarke says: “Most of the Asiatic nations have believed in the doctrine of transmigration.” “It was pretty general both among Greeks and Asiatics.” “The Mexicans believed also in the transmigration of souls.” Bishop Warburton makes this broad statement concerning the belief of the ancients, and the facts justify the statement: “The doctrine of the metempsychosis as it signified a moral designation of Providence, came originally from Egypt, and was, as we have said, believed by all mankind.”

Dr. Alger says: “No doctrine has exerted so extensive, controlling and permanent an influence upon mankind as that of the metempsychosis. . . . Such a theory, well matured, bore unresisted sway through the Eastern World long before Moses slept in his little ark of bulrushes on the shores of the Egyptian river; Alexander the Great gazed with amazement on the self-immolation of fire to which it inspired the Gymnosophists; Cæsar found its tenets propagated by the Gauls beyond the Rubicon; and at this hour it reigns despotic, as the learned professor of Sanscrit at Oxford tells us without any sign of decrepitude or decay, over the Burman, Chinese, Tartar, Tibetan, and Indian nations, including at least six hundred and fifty millions of mankind.” This alone includes nearly two-thirds of the human race.

All the heathens and many Christians who have argued for the immortality of the soul, have with it believed in the transmigration of souls. Thus writes an eminent author: “Certain it is that those philosophers who argued for the immortality of the soul universally held its pre-existence before it animated the human body, and laid the stress of the argument for its eternal existence after its departure from the body, upon its existence from times immemorial, or even from everlasting before its entrance into it.”

What will our friends say to these facts? If universal belief would prove the immortality of the soul, it will as clearly prove the transmigration of souls; for the latter has been generally believed, as I have shown above. Why stop half way? Why not be consistent and believe both? Let them answer these facts or cease to use this argument. D. M. CANRIGHT.